On a hot July night in 2022, Yvané Dixon-Powell left her 2-year-old baby sleeping peacefully in her crib. She checked in on her as normal through the night, for the last time just after 4am.
When she checked again less than an hour later, the child was gone. After a frantic search involving much of the small Cayman Brac community, a fire service boat discovered the lifeless body of Alissady Azalea Powell on the rugged ironshore coastline off South Side Road.
The official cause of death was apparently given as drowning. But how did she get there? And how to explain the bruises on her neck?
It’s a nightmare that has turned into a one-woman detective effort for the child’s mother, who hired her own forensic investigator to look into the crime amid frustration at the inconclusive two-year police inquiry.
Dixon-Powell, says she has been riding a rollercoaster of emotions, ranging from anguish to anger, after being left in the dark on the progress of the investigation into her child’s death.
“I feel like they’ve definitely put everything on the back burner,” she said during a sit-down interview with the Cayman Compass recently.
She said other killings had occurred since her daughter’s death, which have been solved and there were “people serving time” for them, yet her child’s case remains unsolved.
While the official cause of death was given as drowning, Dixon-Powell believes her daughter – who disappeared from the family home in the middle of the night – was abducted and murdered.
A private forensic expert hired by the family to examine the case has concluded that this was a homicide.
At this stage, Dixon-Powell said she feels like no one except her cares about getting justice for her baby girl who died under mysterious circumstances on 26 July 2022.
“I email [the police] the 26th of every month and they have not been responsive. They don’t even acknowledge my emails, and it’s very disheartening and frustrating and overwhelming to have to deal with that because of the circumstances [of her death]. She was a baby that died recklessly, tragically,” Dixon-Powell said.
The last communication the mother said she received from the RCIPS was almost five months ago, despite her repeated emails requesting updates.
She was told then that the police were awaiting an outstanding report from forensic pathologist Dr. Brett Lockyer which, upon receipt, they would use to “formulate the next step in the case”.
The Compass asked the RCIPS about the status of the investigation and the reasons for the lack of communication with Dixon-Powell about her daughter’s death.
In a brief response, the RCIPS said the case into the “tragic death” of Alissady is ongoing.
“RCIPS has engaged a number of forensic experts to review the case. Investigators are analyzing this work, and on completion will determine appropriate next steps. The RCIPS understands the high level of ongoing community interest in this case, and will share any developments as they are established,” it said.
In response to the mother’s concerns about being left in the dark the RCIPS stated that “the family has been regularly engaged throughout the course of the investigation when there has been significant developments to report”.
‘Haunting moment’
Alissady’s lifeless body was found on the Cayman Brac shoreline more than a mile-and-a-half from her home in the early hours of July 2022.
Dixon-Powell says she still relives that haunting moment when she awoke to find her baby daughter missing from her bed that morning.
“I can never forget it,” she said, adding that, after that tragedy, she is even more protective of her two remaining children, whom she prefers not to name for their safety.
She said there is no way her 2-year-old daughter could have gotten out of their Cayman Brac apartment on her own and wandered away.
“She was taken,” Dixon-Powell said, adding that the soles of Alissady’s feet did not have any cuts or bruises to indicate she walked on the ironshore where she was found.
Disputed cause of death
Dixon-Powell insists her child was murdered and the case should be treated as a homicide.
She said she knows her daughter’s death was not an accident, but a deliberate act, and she believes the police are hesitant to take action against the perpetrators.
“I’m a very discerning person, but not even just being discerning, just being her mother, my intuitions … they never lie,” she said.
Dixon-Powell is contesting the findings of the official post-mortem that was performed on her child in 2022.
The results of the official report is with the Coroner’s Court and have not been released to the public.
The Compass understands, however, that the report listed the child’s cause of death as drowning and determined that at least 32 injuries on the girl’s body happened post mortem.
Dixon-Powell says she knew when she saw her baby’s “tortured” body, that the findings in the official autopsy report could not be right.
She said there was purple bruising around the little girl’s neck and gashes and bruises on her body, which she says, painted a picture of what her child had endured.
The Compass was shown images of the child’s body taken shortly after her death, which showed multiple purple bruises of various sizes, a wound to the top of the head and bruising around the neck.
Independent forensic findings
Dixon-Powell commissioned an independent forensic report in 2023 as her “gut feeling” told her that Alissady was taken in a violent manner.
That forensic report, which has been shared with the Compass, was compiled by a former City of Amsterdam medical examiner Dr. Selma J.M. Eikelenboom-Schieveld, who was then employed at US-based firm Independent Forensic Services.
In her report, Eikelenboom-Schieveld disputed the official report’s finding of drowning, as well as the ruling that the “postmortem findings did not support any evidence of trauma/assault”.
Her report picked apart the findings in the original autopsy, further solidifying Dixon-Powell’s suspicions.
Eikelenboom-Schieveld wrote that the distribution of the abrasions over the body was not consistent with the pattern from a body floating in the water.
“Even if she was thrown on the rocky beach by the tide, not every injury can be explained by that mechanism,” she said.
She pointed out that there was bruising of the tongue and bleeding in the thymus, which is located where the neck ends and front side of the thorax begins.
“Those two injuries could indicate an external force has been applied to the neck/mouth area,” she said.
Eikelenboom-Schieveld wrote that, based on the findings, “It should have been concluded that the mechanism of death was asphyxiation, with as cause of death smothering or strangulation, and the manner of death was homicide. The ruling of homicide is further substantiated by the suspicious circumstances of the disappearance of Alissady.”
The grieving mother said knowing that her child was killed and seeing it written in black and white was devastating.
“It hurts when you have that officially. Like, you know it, your stomach is telling you it, you’re seeing it, but then, when you get that official [confirmation] from a professional … I remember feeling like [I was] swallowed up,” she said.
Feeling of disappointment
Dixon-Powell is highly critical of the police’s handling of her daughter’s case, as well as their lack of responsiveness to her offers to assist.
“It’s been [more than] two years now that they cannot come to me with something of substance, knowing how much I’ve bent over backwards assisting them in this, [even] as far as hiring my own private forensics team overseas, which really wanted to work with the RCIPS, and the RCIPS has declined their help,” she said.
She said the independent report was shared with the police, and Eikelenboom-Schieveld offered to assist with the investigation, but she was never contacted.
Last year, a specialist UK team lead by former UK Detective Chief Superintendent Russell Wate, which included a child forensic psychologist and a forensic pathologist, also from the UK, as well as members of the RCIPS team had been tasked with investigating the case.
Nothing further from their investigation has been released, other than the announcement of the creation of the team.
Dixon-Powell said she was never updated on their findings.
She said she was disappointed in the delay in getting the case solved, especially since it occurred on Cayman Brac, which has a smaller community than Grand Cayman.
She said there are too many cases on the Brac that remain without justice for families.
Dixon-Powell recently marked her daughter’s 5th birthday on 26 Oct. with prayers for her innocent soul, instead of being able to tell her and her two siblings that justice was coming for those who took her life.
“I want justice for my daughter and she will get it. If it takes my last breath, I’ll make sure that she gets it. I am that mother. I fight for my children,” she said.
She said she has started writing a book on her child’s life and the investigation which she hopes to publish in a two-part series.
Timeline of Alissady Azalea Powell case:
26 July 2022 – 4:30am: 2-year-old Alissady Azalea Powell is last seen in her Cayman Brac home.
26 July 2022 – 5:10am: The toddler’s mother Yvané Dixon-Powell reports the child missing and a community search is launched.
26 July 2022 – 9:30am: A Cayman Brac Fire Service vessel carrying out nearby offshore searches on the southside coastline finds the missing child unresponsive along the shoreline. A doctor from Faith Hospital pronounces the child deceased at 10am.
27 July 2022 – Forensic specialists and a pathologist are sent to Cayman Brac to conduct investigations. Police confirm that a sudden death investigation would be carried out in relation to this incident.
29 July 2022 – RCIPS announces that a full investigation into the tragic death of the 2 year old is being carried out and decline naming her. It says it is approaching the investigation with an open mind and that no arrests have been made.
12 Feb. 2023 – RCIPS assures that the Alissady Azalea Powell case remains open, and that specialist forensic test results from overseas are pending.
April 2023 – An independent forensic report, commissioned by the child’s mother concludes that the toddler’s death should be considered a homicide and suggests strangulation as the likely cause of her death, contradicting the original autopsy conclusion of death by drowning.
2 May 2023 – Mother Yvané Dixon-Powell pleads for justice after probe into her daughter’s death slows.
22 May 2023 – Police Commissioner Derek Bryne announces that, following an internal review of the investigation into Alissady Azalea Powell’s death, he has approved the commission of an independent specialist team to review the case.
29 May 2023 – UK Detective Chief Superintendent Russell Wate, a highly experienced child-death expert, and other investigators begin a probe into the child’s death. No further updates on their investigation are released.
November 2024 – Dixon-Powell renews appeal for justice, claiming prolonged delays in moving the case forward.
Related Videos
