Family doubtful they’ll receive justice over student-athlete’s death

The family of 17-year-old Alia McDowall, who died in hospital on Sunday, 16 months after being stabbed in the throat by another student outside her school, is demanding justice even as they say the authorities’ handling of the case gives them little hope for it.

“I honestly think that the system and the authorities need to do better. A case like this, it should not have been a case where we basically have to track down what is happening,” one of McDowall’s close female relatives told iWitness News on Monday.

“Even if we don’t get to speak to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution) or whoever’s in charge, we understand that, but the entire time that Alia was in the hospital, they (the police) didn’t follow up on her. They didn’t follow up to know how she was progressing,” the relative said.

McDowall, an ace student-athlete, died at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital on Sunday, losing her battle to return to health since the Nov. 28, 2024, injury left her battling a series of health challenges.

The injury was inflicted outside the Central Leeward Secondary School, which McDowall attended, allegedly by a student of another secondary school, who, reportedly, has since graduated and is slated to appear in court on Tuesday to face a grievous bodily harm charge.

The “Year-And-A-Day” law in St. Vincent and the Grenadines prevents prosecutors from charging the student with murder or manslaughter since McDowall died more than one year and a day after she was injured.

McDowall’s relative, who asked not to be named, declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding her death and the health challenges she faced as a consequence of the injury.

However, iWitness News was reliably informed that doctors had made an emergency intervention on Thursday night after McDowall developed complications following a scheduled medical procedure two weeks earlier.

Authorities ‘sabotaged the case’

The relative said that her family had been optimistic that McDowall would have recovered from the injury and the health challenges that had resulted from it.

“We were hoping that with time she would get better,” the relative told iWitness News, but admitted that the family was always “concerned for” McDowall.

“I would like the public to know that the relevant authorities dragged their feet, were negligence/lacked communication and basically, in my opinion, sabotaged the case that could be against the individual who stabbed her,” the relative told iWitness News.

McDowall’s relative said her family visited the police on Monday, in light of her death on Sunday morning.

“And we went to the police to figure out what is going on with the case, because for the longest while, we have been following up, and we were not getting anything concrete.”

A sergeant of police and another officer in Barrouallie spoke to the family, telling them that the sergeant was newly assigned to the Barrouallie Police Station and was not completely familiar with the case.

“… he told us that the files are with the DPP and they (police) were awaiting instructions from them (prosecutors),” the relative said, adding that the sergeant called an even more senior officer and allowed them to speak to that officer.

“And [that senior officer] told us that the files are at the DPP and he’s awaiting information from them on what charges should be laid,” the relative said, adding that they then went to the DPP’s office and spoke to the chief prosecutor, Duane Daniel.

Authorities accused of ‘dragging their feet on this case’

Daniel has been acting as DPP since October. The relative told iWitness News that he told them that when he became aware of the McDowall case, he was trying to move it along.

“Basically, he told me that on Wednesday last week he sent the file — the said file that [the senior police officer] was saying he’s waiting on from the DPP — … to the commissioner since Wednesday, and charges were to be laid, and they were to arrest the young lady.”

The relative told iWitness News that her family was reliably informed that both the DPP and the senior police officer must have known about the case because they had been contacted multiple times about it.

She said that for this reason, she is also questioning whether the sergeant in Barrouallie also did not know about the case.

“I honestly feel that since last year, the police have been dragging their feet on this case. … Well, let me just use the authorities — all of them.”

The relative told iWitness News that in April or May of 2025, the then lead investigator told her family that the case file was being sent to the DPP’s office and that the investigator would not contact the family on it because it’s the state’s case rather than the family’s.

“In August, I realised that it was taking too long. I reached out to him and he told me that he was transferred from Barrouallie. We did not know that. He also told me that somebody else was in charge of the case. Nobody contacted us to let us know. I don’t know if they should have; I don’t know,” the relative told iWitness News.

“We understand that you were transferred. We got around to calling the DPP’s office. When I spoke with the young lady, it was as though she had no idea about the case.”

McDowall’s relative told iWitness News that a woman at the DPP’s office returned a call to her  in August, saying that they are working on the case and would likely call the police rather than McDowall’s family because it was the state’s case and not McDowall’s family.  

The relative said they concluded that the authorities were handling the case, but she decided to check in on it in November if nothing had happened.

She said McDowall’s family went to the police commissioner’s office but he was not in. They then visited the officer of the DPP and spoke to the same lady they had spoken to in September.

“She basically told us the same things. The only thing different is that a committee needed to meet to decide how the case was going to go or what charges to lay and in at least in about three months, we might hear something,” the relative told iWitness News.

The relative said no charges were laid even as the police and the DPP’s office were informed multiple times about McDowall’s health challenges.

“We told them when we went there multiple times. We also told the DPP as well. In January, she was in the hospital when we went there. All they told us is that they’re working on it.”

‘justice should at least be prison time’

The relatives said she assumed that this was because of the Child Justice Act, which was passed in 2019.

“So, I honestly feel that she’s not going to get justice based on the justice she should have gotten based on the circumstances now,” the relative said of McDowall.

“She is not here to defend herself,” she further said, adding, “I think justice should at least be prison time.

“And we also need to take into consideration that the young lady was left to live her life after wounding Alia like that.

She was out the entire time. She was free the entire time. All she had to do was report to the Barrouallie Police Station once a week.”

McDowall’s relative told iWitness News that social media photos of the young woman who allegedly stabbed McDowall suggest that she has since graduated from secondary school.

She said that the alleged assailant and McDowall know each other and might have been primary school classmates.

McDowall’s family ‘hurt’ and ‘frustrated’

She told iWitness News that the police have “a full, detailed statement, pages-long” from McDowall about the stabbing incident.

“We are hurt; we are frustrated. We don’t know why it took so long. That was part of Alia’s frustration; she was frustrated with the system because we kept following up. And we kept hearing it was being worked on.

“Seems as though it was not being worked on. And I don’t know. We’re frustrated with the system. The situation is very hurtful for us. We’re trying to cope with it, and honestly, we want justice for Alia.”

The relative said that the family of the young woman who is alleged to have stabbed McDowall did not reach out to McDowall’s family before her death, but “tried to” do so since.

‘no remorse’ from assailant’s family

However, McDowall’s relative told iWitness News that they had seen on social media the post allegedly made by a close female relative of the alleged assailant.

“Those posts are very hurtful. They’re very hurtful for us because she’s making those statements and we’re here wondering if Alia’s ever going to get justice, because the system does not seem like it’s set up for her to get justice,” the relative told iWitness News.

“So she’s out there bragging. She doesn’t care. There’s no remorse and then it seems as though there will be no penalty for it.”

And even as the police moved to lay charges in connection with the stabbing, McDowall’s family was not optimistic about the outcome.

“Charges being laid do not mean that the due processes were followed. It does not mean that at the end of it we would get what we will consider justice.

“Because what I read from the iWitness News story, there’s the year-and-a-day rule and then there’s the Child Justice Act that prevents her from being fully persecuted.”

McDowall’s family rejected suggestions that the stabbing might have been triggered by an incident between the two students during an athletics meet in Grenada.

“I don’t know how there could have been an alleged incident in Grenada when the young lady was never in Grenada, at no point for any kind of athletics meet as far as I’m aware. But it was also confirmed on social media when it first arose by the coach of the team, which is Chester Morgan,” the relative told iWitness News.