7 News Belize

A Mother’s Worst Nightmare
posted (June 21, 2010)
On Wednesday night, Alice Williams was on the news pleading for the return of her missing daughter, 19 year old Neisa Pipersburgh who had just graduated from high school. The teenager did not have a history of running away from home or misbehaving which is what made the case worrying.

And the very worst fears were confirmed on Saturday morning when police found a body at mile 6 on the Western highway just past the Burdon Canal Bridge. 7news was there - but for context we begin with the plea her mother made last Week Wednesday.

Wednesday, June 15, 2010
Alice Williams, Mother
"I think it's the greatest fear that any mother could have that the child might not return or show up dead. I am hoping that, that is not the case."

Jules Vasquez Reporting
But it was...and on Saturday morning at 9:00 - Alice Williams had to squarely confront that greatest fear as she walked the 100 yards from the shoulder of the Western Highway to the edge of the Faber's Lagoon where the body of a female lay unidentified.

It is the most difficult walk any parent can ever make.

Alice Williams
"Going through now I said alright I don't know what I am going to see, I don't know what I am going to witness, I have to try stomach what I am going to see. When I first saw my daughter, I told the man plain that is not my daughter. Because, Jules, the body is clearer than you, the corpse is clearer than you, so I said that is not her, my daughter is not Hispanic. He said no the first layer already came off, then he showed me the skin, and then I watched the body and I am telling myself 'no' and the clothes is saying 'yes.' Because it's the very clothes I left her in that's the very clothes she had on. I am walking around the body and I am saying the blouse looks just like the blouse she had on, the pants, the belt, yes. Something tells me to look at her ears because that is their trade mark they don't have any ears they are Pipersburg that have some little small, cute ears. When I look at her ears I said yes, that is she, then I started to cry and just walk away from the area. She was in a terrible state. When I tell you that she was in a terrible state her hairline that was in the front was at the back of her head. Terrible...terrible...terrible."

So terrible that after she saw it this mother just could not hold up.

Neisa Pipersburgh had been bundled up, wrapped in a sheet and folded into a plastic bag. There was a pair of scissors in the plastic bag, a SIM card and two plastic bags pulled over her face. There was a puncture wound beside her right her eye.

Alice Williams
"All what I was visioning was she suffocating, fighting to breathe and can't do anything. I think they suffocate her with those plastic bags and when they were done I don't know if they stab or shot her in her head."

Neisa also had a pair of jeans - someone else's jeans wrapped around her waist and a strange pair of slippers on. Her mother feels she was abducted on her way to the store.

Alice Williams
"When they found here there was a dollar coin in her pocket and she still had on her sleep wear because the attire that she had on she had on her sleep wear. The only thing that was different was the pants that she had on over the tights that she had on. So that means she pulled up on her pants, put the belt around it and went through the back door, pulled it and went to the shop. She was abducted somewhere right between here."

Jules Vasquez
"Ok so but when she was found she had the jeans pants tied around her waist."

Alice Williams
"But she didn't have on any jeans pants. She didn't had on any jeans pants. The jeans pants are not pants that I know about. Yes she had on a jeans pants tied around her waist, but not even the slippers that Neisa was wearing I know where that slippers come from."

And as this mystery unfolds into unthinkable configurations, it's clear to this bewildered mother that her teenage daughter was caught up in something - there was a side she did not know:

Jules Vasquez
"You think that somehow she was involved in a consensual way with dangerous people and events may have taken a turn that a 19 year old could not have predicted or prepared for?"

Alice Williams
"Jules, anything possible. Anything possible. when I say that, Jules, we can't swear for our children, we can't say that he/she won't do this or that. All I know I am talking about the Neisa I know. Now the things that I have been hearing about her, these things really make me feel like something else is wrong."

Jules Vasquez
"You are seeing increasingly like she is caught up in a world that's maybe beyond her."

Alice Williams Maybe only she knows how she got in there. Because me the mother can't tell you how she got in there. I can tell you about the daughter I pick up at morning time and drop off at Pallotti and when I done I know that she suppose to catch the bus and come home. That is the Neisa I know. It makes me start to think what she was doing when I wasn't around. What was she doing when she was with her friends?"

This mother feels that friend who had started living at the house may have the answer.

Alice Williams
"They are saying that its Neisa best friend who lead her to her death. The only best friend I know who is here is this child, what I've been understanding Neisa have been getting threatening message from this person. And this same young lady is the one who brings the phone to Neisa when the person is threatening her."

So her daughter, this girl who graduated fourth form for only two weeks ago had been receiving threats, but amidst all this confusion, there is still some satisfaction for this mother.

Alice Williams
"But one thing that I am really thankful Jules that I found her. Al least my heart could be at ease knowing that ok she's dead I don't have to worry if she's dead. I know now that she is dead I know that I will never see her again. That is the comfort; the thing that was really killing me was not knowing where she was."

And so while she does have that partial closure, what she doesn't know is who did it and why.

Alice Williams
"So what I want to tell that person that harms my child, he will get it back twofold. It won't be anybody; it will be the hands of God touch him."

Neisa Pipersburgh was the youngest of Alice Williams's three daughters.

Because of the advanced state of decomposition, a post mortem was conducted on-site and the family had to have the funeral in the afternoon.

Notably, the post mortem could not confirm a cause of death. According to a police release sample analysis will be required. She is believed to have been killed within 24 hours or less of her disappearance. Her body was dumped in the area after she was killed.

As for possible suspects, police did search the home of and detain one notorious figure who lives in the neighborhood but he was released. Police also searched the home of another man who was known to be friendly to Neisa Pipersburgh...and while he was charged, it was for an unrelated offence.

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