Explaining homicide to fathers and mothers

Dear Editor,
We all know from experience that telling a father or mother that their daughter, son, brother or sister has died is difficult enough, let alone telling them their loving daughter has been murdered.
It can be tempting to shield them from the details of a violent death; however, Police and media involvement means that the details will quickly become public knowledge. It’s very likely that the parent will find out somehow – in the media, on social media, overheard conversations. You will probably prefer that they hear what happened from the police rather than from rumours. Here is a story of one such parent.
Mr Dexton Copeland is the father of the 26-year-old deceased Nurse, Ms Schenise Apple.
On the afternoon of July 2, 2019. Nurses Schenise Apple was murdered in Mahdia Nurse’s Hostel in her room while contributing to Guyana and humanity.
Overall, it has been one year since his daughter’s death and they are still in a state of limbo concerning this matter.
The extreme duress his family had endured since his daughter’s death, has been compounded by the lack of concern by the Ministry of Public Security. It is upsetting, so is the lack of attention by the Minister Volda Lawrence. The family deserves better treatment, and I hope you will look into the situation to see that the suffering caused upon nurse Schenise Apple is never again inflicted on healthcare workers, and to ensure that a similar incident doesn’t occur again.
The caretaker Government must take the following steps.
(1) Provide appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services.
(2) Promote rural-urban cooperation
(3) Quick decisions on internal and external complaints on sexual harassment on the job.
(4) Modernised security systems and trained personnel for Government buildings.
Events surrounding murder can often become very confused. Facts may be changed to become more comfortable to live with – or to make them easier to explain. It may be, for example, that the parent had been previously unaware of a child’s activities which have since become public knowledge. It may seem like the worst possible time to talk about this but giving the parent an honest explanation will help them make sense of what they are hearing and what is happening.
As a parent, we never want to ever be in this situation. Let’s give Mr Dexter Copeland all the support we can to deal with his misfortune.

Sincerely,
David Adams