Coroner decision; Brother dead after alleged sexual assault of sister

Wilkie Arthur

Eagle Legal News Media

Turks and Caicos, September 13, 2024 – In case one, allegations of a brother, of Dominican descent, raping his own sister and then hanging himself. In case two, allegations of another and known Dominican man after being deported or repatriated returns to the Turks and Caicos as a stow away and allegedly drowns.

Eagle Legal Court Correspondent was in the Coroner’s Court for the past two weeks when various different coronial matters were called.

The learned Coroner delivered her final decision on the two coronial matters mentioned above.

We will report on case number #1, “Allegations of brother raping sister, then killing himself.”

GABRIEL ESMIL DURAN, lived in Dock Yard, Kew Town, Providenciales. He was born in 1976 and allegedly hung himself in November 2021.  His sister, whose initials are A V D, gave police a statement of her brother raping her about 12 hours before being found hanging with a rope around his neck.

The Hon Coroner relied on that statement to help aid her in her decision.

The sister said, her brother was drinking earlier that day, and after the sexual assault she ran out of the house and hid herself in the bushes until the morning.  It was said that she told someone about the sexual assault.  She said around 9pm she checked the door, it was locked, but in the morning the door was unlocked. The Coroner said there was no evidence of anyone entering the property, but one of her concerns was how the door got unlocked.

There was also information or evidence about his partner catching Covid-19 in the Dominican Republic, and that possibly weighed heavily on him.

Due to insufficient evidence surrounding the “police provisional suicide death” of Gabriel Esmil Duran, the learned Coroner did not reach the conclusion that this was a suicide death and her decision in the coronial matter was an “OPEN CONCLUSION”, which means if any further evidence was to ever come forward in this particular case, the coroner could reopen it.