Body of Sherilee Nicholas exhumed
While Orange Walk police question the mother of a ten year old girl found dead today, the mother of another murdered child led police to the grave of her daughter Sherilee Nicholas on Friday night. The officers weren’t there to pay last respects, but to dig up the body, whose identity is now being questioned after Sherilee’s school bag and personal items were found near the remains of another child last week. But June Gabourel still maintains that the body is that of her twelve year old daughter even though police are wondering if it is actually 9 year old Jay Blades who disappeared the day before the body was found.
At midnight on Friday June eleventh, the remains believed to be that of Sherilee Nicholas were exhumed at the Lords Ridge Cemetery. Today the skull fragments, a rib, a leg bone, and a pelvic bone are being prepared to send to the FBI forensic lab in Washington D.C. Blood samples from members of Sherilee’s family as well as Jay Blades’ family will also be sent for DNA testing. It is hoped the tests will determine once and for all the identities of the remains found on June sixth and the body buried in October by Sherilee Nicholas’s family. Thirty-two year old June Gabourel, Nicholas’ mother said although she has been cooperating with the police, she did not agree with the exhumation and still believes it was her daughter in the grave. Gabourel said there were specific markings on Sherilee’s body that told her it was her little girl.
June Gabourel, Mother
“Well I looked for a cut and a fish eye that was under the foot and a mark on the knee. But the mark on the knee was still there and the cut and the nail juck under the foot. The doctor didn’t ask me; I was the one telling the doctor what I wanted to find on this body and if I tell the doctor that I wanted to find that and the doctor could have looked and find it then that means that it was my child.
So I don’t know why they gone through all of this to exhume the body just to please people. I need to please myself. I am the mother, not them; and if they had gone out there, they would have seen it. But, I went and I saw what I was supposed to have seen. I saw my daughter and I found the marks on the body.”
Gabourel says she has not been pleased with the way the police have been carrying out the investigation and fears that the case will not be solved. Gabourel has written a poem pleading with her daughter’s killer to come forward.
June Gabourel
“Mr. Murderer, do you know me? I know maybe you tell. Maybe I would be smiling at you and you would be laughing at me and saying what a fool. Mr. Murderer, how do you sleep at night? How could you, how could you eat? Do you? I wonder. After seeing all of the blood, how could you? I am the mother, I couldn’t sleep. How could you sleep? How could you eat? Do you? It’s not done and finish yet. There comes a time and that time is near. Mr. Murderer, judgement day you will pay.”
Although she doesn’t know who the murderer is Gabourel believes her daughter was killed by someone she knew and trusted.
No one has been charged with the murder of Sherilee Nicholas. An autopsy revealed she was stabbed numerous times and raped. The body of another child, Jackie Fern Malic was found in March. She had also been stabbed and raped. A mechanic, Mike Williams has been charged with her murder and is at the Hattieville Prison awaiting trial.
