The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

It was a case that shocked the nation.

Twelve-year-old Adriel Moxey vanished after leaving school on November 18, 2024, setting off a desperate search. A MARCO alert was issued and her photograph spread rapidly across social media as her mother pleaded for her safe return.

“The person who has her listening to this right now, please send my daughter home,” Sasha Moxey said in a televised appeal hours before the worst was confirmed.

The search ended the following afternoon in bushes near Faith Avenue South — a route the seventh-grade Anatol Rodgers High School student routinely used to walk home.

Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander said officers using drones, K9 units and ground teams made the discovery.

“They discovered a young girl who was lifeless, lying on her back with just a top on,” he said. “On further examination of the body, it was discovered that a piece of cloth was tightly tied around the neck.

Investigators said she had been strangled and sexually assaulted, triggering national outrage and urgent calls for justice.

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said: “We are united in our prayers to God, that he may strengthen her family and loved ones, so that they may endure their heartbreak. We are going to turn this country upside down to find the criminal who did this and bring him to justice.”

Education Minister Glenys Hanna-Martin called the killing “an outrage of the worst kind”, while the president of the Bahamas Crisis Centre, Dr Sandra Dean Patterson, described it as their worst nightmare and said she hoped it would be a wake up call for Bahamians.

The investigation quickly focused on finding a suspect. Police initially detained and later cleared one man after forensic testing before focusing on a suspect known to the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre. Commissioner Fernander said the man’s mental condition initially prevented officers from interviewing him and required medical evaluation while forensic testing proceeded.

“We will wait for the doctor to indicate to us when it’s a good time, or if the investigators are able to speak with him if he’s in sound mind to really answer questions put together,” he said.

Police said the suspect was placed under heavy guard and later evaluated as investigators prepared overseas DNA testing. Officers also revisited reports that screams had been heard in the area the night before the body was discovered, though darkness limited the search at the time.

“You have different lines of inquiries,” Commissioner Fernander said weeks later. “I always say that [an] investigation is like a puzzle. As you move, you find a piece, you put a piece there and eventually you will come up with a perfect photo and that’s exactly what happened.”

He said CCTV footage and “good detective work” helped investigators assemble the case and promised charges would follow.

Before the courts could act, the country gathered to mourn.

At Restoration Kingdom Ministries, Adriel lay in an open casket dressed in a white shirt and purple skirt, a Bible beside her and messages of love at her feet. Her mother stood over her daughter for the final time.

“I thought about you today, and sadness came to know I would never see you again, so I cherish the memory,” she said. “Love you forever, girly.”

Principal Andrew Dean described the child as “a bright light in our community”.

Officials urged reflection on the safety of children and the role of communities in protecting them, echoing the mother’s public question about where the village had been when she needed help.