Murdered Brit schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling’s mum urges Indian cops to find her killer – ten years on from her death in Goa
THE mum of murdered British schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling has urged Indian cops to find her killer on the 10th anniversary of her death.
Scarlett, 15, was raped and left for dead on an Indian beach ten years ago this week.
The tragic teenager was on a six-month family holiday when her half-naked body was found covered in 50 injuries in Goa.
Local men Samson D’Souza, 36, and Placido Carvalho, 47, were cleared of killing her in 2016 after a string of police blunders.
Now Scarlett’s heartbroken mum Fiona Mackeown, 53, is calling for Indian detectives to finally solve the mystery of her death once and for all.
She told The Sun: “The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation is tabling an appeal at Mumbai’s High Court but we’ve been waiting for a date for it to start for 18 months.
“It feels like they’re going to keep me hanging on for years.
“The CBI are supposed to be the best India’s got but they’ve never done a proper investigation from the beginning.
“It feels like they don’t want to know the truth and I’m starting to accept we’ll never get real justice.
“The judgement very clearly said the CBI and Goa police were lacking in the investigation - a lot of evidence was destroyed - but Indian authorities now need to crack on with the appeal and go right back to the case from the very beginning.
“We need real justice for Scarlett.”
Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho were accused of plying Scarlett with drugs before attacking her in February 2008.
British witness, Michael Mannion, 48, a pal of Carvalho’s, spoke several times of witnessing the attack.
He claimed to see his friend on Scarlett’s lifeless body on the night she died.
But he failed to give an official statement and said he was too stressed to testify - despite desperate appeals from Scarlett’s family.
Mannion is now understood to have sold his home in Brighton, East Sussex, after pressure from The Sun in 2016 to help solve the case
Fiona, from Barnstable, Devon, said: “I’ve heard nothing from Michael and urge him to come forward and help, wherever he is.
“It’s ten years this week we lost Scarlett and that’s a long time without answers.
“We took horses down the beach on the anniversary and had a lot of her friends over in the evening. It was nice to see them all again.
“It made me wonder what she’d be doing now.
“Scarlett would be 26 this year. Would she have kids by now? Would she be travelling? I can only imagine.”
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Fiona slammed Indian authorities for “not caring or valuing” Scarlett’s life - but still tries to remain upbeat.
She said: “I still have seven children, somewhere to live, my home, there is so much more misery elsewhere and people worse off than us. I just try and focus on that.
"The last 18 months my head has been up my backside but I’ve just started feeling ok again.
“I’m trying to move on holistically with lovely workshops and things like that, which help. I’ve met some really lovely people and have to be thankful for what I’ve still got.
“But I’ll never stop fighting for Scarlett if there’s a flicker of hope we can find her justice.”
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