A judge said the opportunity to identify Alissady Powell's killer was lost in 2022. In her written ruling sentencing Devon Emmanuel Wright Jr to life imprisonment on 2 October 2026, Justice Emma Peters said: "Perhaps if there had been a murder investigation before 2024, then the police might have collected sufficient evidence to identify the murderer. That opportunity was lost when the decision was made not to make this a murder investigation, even before the erroneous postmortem was carried out on 6 August."

The Grand Court ruling, obtained by The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) on 19 October, is the first judicial account of why no one has been convicted of killing the two-year-old, who was taken from her bed on Cayman Brac on 26 July 2022 and found dead on the ironshore hours later. A jury acquitted Wright of murder and manslaughter on 14 August 2026 but convicted him of abduction, and the judge said she was sure he handed the child "to the person who thereafter killed her".

The Judicial Administration told TCJ on 19 October that the criminal case "is now concluded", that the Court has not been advised of any appeal, and that the Coroner's inquest "remains open" and will be dealt with "as soon as possible", although no date has been set. The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) has engaged a UK child death expert to review its investigation, and the Governor's Office told TCJ on 21 September that the review is the Commissioner of Police's responsibility.

What the judge found

Justice Peters said bruising on the child's neck was "visible to the person who found her and to her mother just after her death but seemingly considered irrelevant at that time by the police and the pathologist". Dr Brett Lockyer, a Home Office-approved forensic pathologist, later concluded that the cause of death was compression of the neck. The judge said the evidence police did obtain was "clearly sufficient" to make the jury sure of the abduction, and she commended two officers "involved in this investigation more recently" as "thoroughly professional and painstaking", adding that they "could not go back and remedy the failings that happened in 2022".

The jury, she said, must have concluded that a third party was involved. A person the defence pointed to as that possible third party "is no longer alive and was not arrested or interviewed before his death". At least one phone in the apartment was never checked. She also found that Wright got rid of a Ring doorbell at the complex "to prevent the investigation from identifying either his involvement or the identity of others involved".

A case note published on 18 August by No5 Barristers' Chambers in England, where prosecutor Jonas Hankin KC practises, said police worked for close to two years on the hypothesis that the child had drowned in the complex's swimming pool and that her body was moved afterwards. As a result, it said, the apartment was never examined as a homicide scene and digital and telephone material was not secured. The note said the doorbell was recovered from the shoreline, but by then no footage could be accessed.

At a media briefing on 12 December 2024, Commissioner Kurt Walton said "no expense will be spared in investigating the death of this child". Police said at that briefing that the initial post-mortem finding had not delayed the investigation.

How the case was reopened

A post-mortem examination on 6 August 2022 gave the cause of death as drowning. Alissady's mother, Yvané Dixon, engaged a forensic expert in the U.S. at her own expense, and that expert found the child died from compression of the neck, Mr Hankin told the jury. In May 2023 the RCIPS announced a specialist team led by former Detective Chief Superintendent Dr Russell Wate QPM, a child death expert. Its findings have not been published. On 11 December 2024 police arrested a man and two women; the women were released without charge. Wright was charged with abduction and murder on 2 July 2025.

The abduction count was on the indictment because Mr Hankin recommended it, the chambers note said. He advised on 11 June 2025 that a jury might be sure Wright took the child but not sure he did so to enable someone else to kill her. On an indictment charging murder alone, the note said, the trial would have ended in a complete acquittal.

The sentence

The judge sentenced Wright on the basis of the verdicts, that he abducted the child and handed her to someone else intending no harm. "Let me be absolutely clear, I am not and will not sentence the Defendant for killing this child," she wrote. She said "the only person to whom he could realistically have handed Alissady, having abducted her, is the person who in fact murdered her", and that the risk of harm "would have been foreseeable and obvious". Wright was on bail at the time. She called the offence "a gross breach of trust".

Wright, who appeared by video link from HMP Northward, received concurrent life sentences for the abduction and for an armed robbery at the Chill Spot restaurant on 22 February 2025, with a minimum term of 20 years before the Conditional Release Board can consider him. Had the abduction stood alone it would have attracted 18 years. A determinate sentence for all the offences would have been 34 years, reduced by 40% to set the minimum term. The 581 days spent on remand are to be deducted. The February 2025 robberies were committed while Wright was on bail for the child's death and wearing an electronic tag. The judge called him "dangerous and ruthless".

The family

Ms Dixon and Alissady's father, George Powell, gave victim impact statements. The judge recorded that Ms Dixon described her daughter as "gentle, intelligent, loving and full of personality" and spoke of "the cruel comments that she receives". Mr Powell said his deepest pain was that he could not protect her. After the verdicts, the child's grandmother, Janet Ebanks, said "the police did not do a proper investigation". On 20 August Ms Dixon said in a written statement: "If the original medical conclusion was wrong, I want to know why."

The review and the inquest

The RCIPS said on 11 September that Commissioner Walton "acknowledges the understandable public concerns regarding the initial handling of the investigation and the court outcome" and had engaged "a leading international child death expert based in the UK". It did not name the expert, set out terms of reference or say whether the findings will be published. Ms Dixon has said the review is to be held in November.

Under section 55(1)(c) of the Cayman Islands Constitution Order 2009 the Governor is responsible for "internal security including the police". Asked whether Governor Jane Owen was consulted on the review, supports full publication of its findings and is considering a wider inquiry, the Governor's Office said on 21 September: "Operational policing matters, including this review, are the responsibility of the Commissioner. We will carefully consider the findings and recommendations of the review when it is completed." Asked again on 15 October, it said on 20 October it had "nothing further to add at this stage".

The RCIPS has given no date for its review to report, and the Coroner has not set a date for the inquest. Wright's co-defendants in the robberies are to be sentenced separately.