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In May, we told you about Anisha Young’s DNA results, they were inconclusive. Of course Young’s family was disappointed that they had run into another dead end in her case but they are relentless and are looking into other options for closure. Well, their private investigator Jose Espat emerged today and called a press briefing to discuss that option. Espat says he and the family have engaged the director of a lab in Los Angeles where Young’s mother lives. Espat says that with Commissioner Chester Willaims’ approval, the family can access the sample and establish a chain of custody so the samples can be sent to the lab in Los Angeles for another round of testing. According to Espat, Williams has given the approval for the family to access the sample but he has not given approval for the chain of custody. Here is what Espat had to say.

Jose Espat - Private Investigator
"Moving towards the Anisha Young missing person homicide case, we had gotten permission and we had gotten the go ahead from the commissioner of police to get the sample of the remains that were found at the shallow grave through the Maskall Road for private testing. We all know that if we do that through private testing, it will not be admissible in the court of law and therefore no one will be held accountable or can be charged for the crime of homicide. If that result would be positive, if there's a match now, we already have established a contact with an accredited well known lab in Los Angeles through Anisha Young's mom who is a friend of the doctor who is the director of that lab. I spoke as well with the mother of Anisha Young, Miss Maureen Young and the doctor through a 3 way call and we discussed the way forward and as I agreed and I told the family before, it makes no sense to go through all that expense, take those samples to the US and we have a positive match and then we can't use it in a court of law to get a conviction. Now, there's an option because the director, the doctor said that we could start a chain of custody through the state and she would have done that through a coroner’s office but like I told you, we don't have a coroner’s office in Belize. By not having this, the control is now here in Belize in the hands of the office of the commissioner of police and the office of the director of forensic services. So she said that it would be good enough if we could speak with the commissioner of police and have him do a 4 way call with us as well as we did for him to be informed and everything is aligned so that we can start the process of taking on that chain of custody."

"I reached out to Mr. Williams the same day I hung up that phone with the director of the forensic lab and Miss Maureen Young. I messaged him not once, more than 7 times. He sent back one brief message stating he's not in the city and up to today, he has not answered. He knew because I explained to him and I told him we are supposed to leave on Monday, this is very urgent. We're supposed to leave for LA on Monday, we are already getting the tickets bought from LA, we're getting everything set to leave Monday. He did not reach out to me alright? He did not reach out to me, he did not even bother to say well let's meet, give me 5 minutes of your time, you can't give me for something like this? 5 minutes to make one phone call to the director, the director speaks to you, we all agree on something and we get moving from there. So now, I am appalled you know at his lack of action, I had to post in Facebook and it is how he replied to me and we went to see him and with Miss Sandra Hyde, the grandmother of Anisha and it was there that we agreed and he said okay, he's going to give the approval, so the approval is there. The approval is not in question but now we need him to speak as I explained to him, this about the chain of custody."

As you heard Esapt say, the family is still planning to go to LA to get the samples to the lab even without the chain of custody. When we asked Commissioner Chester Williams for a comment this evening he told us he is out of the country and will deal with this matter when he returns.