At first glance, the death of mother-of-seven Eva Glee Ebanks in a crash in 1997 on Cayman Brac seemed like a tragic accident.
But there was always something suspicious about the circumstances of her death. For starters, she may have been struck twice.
Her family has long believed there is something more sinister behind the story. Now detectives, acting on new information, have reopened the almost-three-decades-old case.
Some details of the review – codenamed Operation Lavender – cannot be fully revealed due to their sensitivity, but police are investigating the possibility that the circumstances may not be as they first seemed.
An inquest into Ebanks’s death returned an ‘open verdict’, meaning the coroner could not decide how she died.
In this month’s Compass Cold Case Files, in partnership with the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, we lift the lid on the historical case, as a review of the evidence gets under way.
New review begins
Detective Constable Mike Lewis of the RCIPS Serious Crime Review team is looking into Ebanks’s case, one of the oldest up for review by the team.
“My unit is specifically set up to look at historical cases, cold cases… Sometimes, as [with] this case, we may get information that comes in which makes us look at a case again,” Lewis said.
Unlike previous cases highlighted in this series, some details of this review cannot be disclosed for now. However, Lewis said he intends to get to the truth as the inquiry moves forward.
Ebanks was 35 when she was killed and had five young children, he said.
Unlike previous cases highlighted in this series some details of this review cannot be disclosed for now. However, Lewis said he intends to get to the truth as the inquiry moves forward.
Ebanks was last seen alive at Coral Isle Bar, getting into a truck with a man.
“It was the early hours of the 16th October, 1997, at South Side Road West on Cayman Brac [when there] was a serious road traffic accident… A member of the public came forward not too long ago with some information, and that information was looked at. As a result of that, a review was directed of the case and that’s where we are at the moment,” Lewis said.
He said the team visited the Brac and examined the scene, although that had been impacted by Hurricane Ivan, which also destroyed some records in the case.
“You can imagine, with Hurricane Ivan, there has been some problems obtaining papers, documentation, exhibits, but… we’ve got a good amount of information to go by,” he said.
He appealed for members of the public to come forward, if they have relevant information.
A loss like no other
Ebanks’s family, Lewis said, is being kept up to date with developments in the case.
For Ebanks’s daughter Deseray McLean and her sister Elsie Marie Ebanks-Sevik, the loss endures.
“I keep a picture in my room of her. We just can’t forget her because she was a good sister and she loved her children,” Ebanks-Sevik said.
McLean, who was 18 at the time of her mother’s death, said it has been a difficult road for the family.
Her mother was a “free spirit, very friendly, kind, very compassionate. A lot of her friends always spoke highly about her being so kind and loving. She was a good mom,” McLean recalled in a recent interview with the Compass on the Brac.
She said her mother had her at 16, and being a young parent was challenging.
McLean recounted her last moments with her mother, after waking up on the morning of
16 Oct. 1997 to learn she had been in an accident.
“I rushed to the hospital. By the time I got [there] she was already in the operating theatre. She was bleeding out. They said her injuries were really bad. She had been dragged by a vehicle and that she was left for dead. … It’s something that haunts me every night,” she sobbed. “She pretty much died in my arms because by the time I was able to get in there, she was taking her last breaths,” McLean said.
“I didn’t actually get to speak to her. I just whispered to her, I love her, I love her,” she added.
McLean said her aunts were with her mother before she went in for surgery, and that it was in those moments that the dying woman revealed details about what happened to her that night.
“They just said that she kept calling the person’s name that did it to her,” McLean stated.
This was also revealed in testimony given back in 1999 during a coroner’s inquest into Ebanks’s death.
McLean admitted that the family had lost faith in the judicial system and police because they never got justice for her mother.
“She didn’t deserve this kind of death,” Ebanks-Sevik said.
Both women say they are grateful that the police are looking into Ebanks’s death, although it is “painful”.
“I’m here to do anything to see justice done for my sister,” Ebanks-Sevik vowed.
“It means that she hasn’t been forgotten… her kids, we were left in the dark, and now it gives me a little light of hope seeing that someone remembers my mom because she was such a beautiful person. I really have hope that maybe someone will take this case more serious and she will get some justice finally, ‘cause I worry that she’s not resting in peace because of the injustice,” McLean said.
Both women pleaded for those involved in Ebanks’s death and those who saw or know what happened to come forward.
“Do the right thing, allow her to have some peace, her children to have some inner peace,” McLean implored, encouraging potential witnesses, “Just say what you know, and tell the police what you know, and just be honest. Stop trying to cover up for people because they’re popular around here or they have connections, just do the right thing.”
McLean acknowledged the fresh review of the case could be divisive in the Brac’s small community.
“My mom was a very brave woman, as am I. It’s something that we will have to face, but I’d rather stir the pot than have it just sitting there simmering,” she said.
A case unresolved
A coroner’s inquest was held into Ebanks’s death in 1999 and the jury returned an open verdict, which meant that the evidence they heard was insufficient for them to determine the cause of the Brac woman’s death.
A total of 18 witnesses testified in that case. The inquest determined that Ebanks died around 4am on 16 Oct. 1997 at Faith Hospital from severe loss of blood after injuries sustained in the incident.
Pathologist Dr. John Obafunwa had itemised 53 injuries, internal and external, that Ebanks had sustained.
Anyone with information relating to Eva Glee Ebanks’s death or any of the cases in this series can call the Serious Crime Review team confidential tip line at 649-2930
Lewis said Ebanks had got out from the moving car, driven by a “boyfriend or ex-boyfriend at the time”, and was struck by another vehicle and dragged along the road.
Lewis said forensic evidence indicates that she may have been struck twice on the night she died.
A number of allegations, including domestic abuse, had been made in the case, and Ebanks had even sought a restraining order against the man with whom she was last seen alive.
The full facts of the case, Lewis said, are still to be determined and he is “driven” to collate the evidence.
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