‘Never-ending nightmare’ as mother seeks answers in Brac toddler death

Nine months ago, Yvane Dixon-Powell faced every mother’s nightmare when her young daughter, Alissady Azalea Powell, disappeared from her bed only to be found lifeless a short distance from her home.

Dixon-Powell says she is no closer to knowing the truth about what happened to her two-year-old, but she believes she was deliberately killed.

“It feels very much premeditated,” Dixon-Powell said in a recent Zoom interview with the Cayman Compass.

“I’m not a person that is involved in drugs. There was no reason for my child to have been murdered or taken from me. No absolute reason,” Dixon-Powell said.

She said her child was not one to walk around or be adventurous and added she grieves for her “absolutely perfect” daughter every day.

“She was no trouble at all. She was my best friend… I share a bond with each one of my kids. But Alissady… it was just something about her. She was special,” she said.

“She was amazing, quiet, a real angel, and a real princess,” she added.

Case remains open

Alissady was reported missing from her Cayman Brac home in the early hours of 26 July 2022.

A couple of hours later, the toddler was found unresponsive by searchers combing the shoreline.

A post-mortem was carried out on the child, the results of which are now with the Coroner’s Court and have not been released to the public.

Police, in a statement last week, confirmed that the investigation into what they termed as “the unexplained death of the two-year-old child in Cayman Brac” remains open and ongoing.

“Police continue in their efforts to establish all of the facts surrounding the circumstances of this tragic death. Officers have been in dialogue with the mother and other members of the child’s family and are keeping them updated on developments,” the statement said.

Police said, as the matter is still an open file with both the Coroner’s Office and the RCIPS, “no comment can be made on any findings at this time”.

Search for justice

However, for Dixon-Powell, not knowing what happened to her daughter is like a never-ending nightmare.

“It’s hard, it’s difficult, it’s overwhelming. I’m honestly just trying to keep it together and be there for my two older kids while I go through this process… [I]t’s really only me because I’ve been doing this all by myself since my daughter died… fighting [for] justice for her and trying to really find out what has happened,” she said.

Dixon-Powell said she commissioned a private forensic firm to conduct a probe on her behalf, which she shared with police. She is not willing to make the findings public while the police investigation remains ongoing.

Police said they would “continually review all material and information provided to us”, according to the RCIPS statement.

Dixon-Powell appealed for anyone with information or who may have seen something to come forward to help solve her daughter’s case.

“…[W]hoever did it, and if they don’t come clean, I can only hope and pray that it really eats them up, that they can’t sleep, that they have restless nights. No parent, no mother should have to go through this,” she said.

Life-changing tragedy

Dixon-Powell said she often goes over those last moments she spent with her daughter, that final kiss she planted on little Alissady’s forehead after she wrapped her in her blankets in her bed.

She said the morning of 26 July was like any other and she checked on her daughter throughout the night, as usual.

“When I got back up at 4:30, I saw her blanket was off of her. So when I went to put her blanket on her, she was wet. So I changed her… wrapped her back up, kissed her on her forehead. That is something that I always do with my kids and I went back to bed,” she recalled.

She said half-an-hour later, she heard the front door slam which caused her to jump. She headed towards the front door and, as she crossed Alissady’s room, she noticed her bed was empty.

“I went inside the room, of course, to see maybe if she had rolled off the bed, but she wasn’t there. I automatically ran outside and I was just screaming and looking for her,” she recalled.

Panic then set in.

Dixon-Powell said after searching the pool and the gazebo area at her apartment complex, she rushed back towards the apartment and called the police.

Dixon-Powell said the police and the community came out to search for her daughter.

“My daughter is not one to be without me. She is 100% a mama’s girl, she’s always with me. So I knew… she didn’t walk out,” she said.

She said, at that time, she believed that her daughter would be found safe.

She remembers her cousin calling her and saying they had found Alissady and it was not too far away.

“I jumped in the car anxiously. I was in my mind thinking ‘Ok, they found her… my daughter is still alive’,” she said.

The next thing she recalls is waking up in a hospital bed, having blacked out after arriving at the scene and being told her daughter’s body had been found.

She has no idea where her child’s body was found, all she knows is it was 1.6 miles away on the ironshore.

The child’s body was discovered by a Cayman Brac Fire Service vessel around 9:30am that morning, more than four hours after she was reported missing.

Questions continue to swirl around what really happened to Alissady.

“I can’t comprehend why something like this would’ve happened,” Dixon-Powell sobbed. “I don’t have bad blood on the road and I just don’t understand.”