00:00 While details surrounding the life of Hannah Matura, whose skeletal remains were exhumed from a shallow grave in the place she called home, are still shrouded in mystery,
00:11 neighbours recount a life of persistent abuse for the disabled girl.
00:16 We intervened many times when he was beaten by that window. I would open my window Saturday morning, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock in the morning, kissing.
00:23 Morning, noon and night. We don't know how many children were being beaten there by the head and bowling.
00:30 But this particular child had a disability and we saw her bowling. She used to be on the bed and everything.
00:35 He hit her with her wood, he beat her with belt.
00:38 One neighbour shares the many times she and others could take no more when they heard Hannah's cries for help.
00:46 The law failed her. Nothing was done. I lived here, I intervened.
00:51 Police say based on evidence they are 99% certain the remains are that of Hannah.
00:57 As teeth were in good condition, they will be seeking to match dental records to come to the full positive conclusion.
01:04 Forensic tests done on Wednesday show the remains to be that of a female of the same age as Hannah, and that the person died in 2017 of unnatural causes.
01:16 The next door neighbour said another neighbour also troubled by the teens' wails stepped in.
01:23 He called police in my yard, he called I think social welfare people on his cell phone in my yard.
01:30 I called social welfare twice and nothing was done. I made reports in St Joseph police station for 14 years.
01:37 And no police never come. They take the report, okay we come in, okay we'll send somebody as soon as we get a vehicle.
01:42 Nobody came. I went in personally about 8 times, 8 or 9 times.
01:46 There was one person she says who did take her complaints seriously.
01:51 I used to call the Ambassador Hotel to speak to Mr Jiro, which is the child's grandmother.
01:55 She took the complaint many times. She would talk to me, she said that man is sick, she always tell her daughter don't let that man come to the hotel.
02:03 But Evelyn Jiro died in 2016, one year before Hannah's cries, bellowing out of these windows was silenced.
02:12 No, I didn't suspect she was murdered or whatever, but I did ask the uncle two years ago during COVID time.
02:20 I'm not seeing the other girl who had the long hair who used to wave to us and tease us sometimes.
02:24 He said girl I don't know, because he don't speak with them. He don't talk to his sister.
02:30 Because years ago before I came here to live, he would chop off my sister, he would chop her when he tried to intervene.
02:36 They end up in court and she dismissed the case.
02:39 And exactly, my sister loved him more than anything else, so she had to take what she got.
02:44 No one knows how and why the others occupying the premises, the girl's mother, her siblings,
02:52 took seven years to not report her missing, but reveal the horror of Hannah's demise.
02:59 I know that day he beat that girl, I called the police because it was either Tuesday or Wednesday in 2017,
03:05 when that girl was bawling her life out.
03:08 Police when contacted today say they have no record of such reports made against the suspect,
03:14 no reports of abuse inflicted on Hannah or her seven siblings on their database.
03:20 Of the seven children reportedly found at the house on Tuesday, only one is a minor, her age 13.
03:28 The seven share the same relation with the suspect as Hannah.
03:33 Her remaining siblings are aged 29, 28, 26, 24, 22 and 18.
03:42 The abuse reportedly never stopped.
03:45 I can't be a neighbor cursing a neighbor for beating your child, abusing your child.
03:49 Every day you're cursing your wife, I'm the last one to be cursing my wife.
03:52 Even as the suspect remains at large, the vehicle he allegedly fled the scene in was found neatly parked in the family's garage
04:01 when we visited, causing police to return to the residence on Wednesday to make another sweep.
04:07 Shocked as they were to see police remove bare bones from the shallow grave,
04:12 neighbors recall something eerie in 2017.
04:16 In 2017 there was a smell, really stink, and right here by this wall right here I had a cook pan.
04:22 So we were thinking is that, she and my husband, four pieces in, no it can't be that.
04:26 And we said what the hell is that smell?
04:28 They had a dog too.
04:29 They had a dog.
04:30 So we're taking it, it's their dog, yeah.
04:32 Right, right, right.
04:33 So we didn't take it on.
04:34 Even the guy who was riding the bicycle looking for me, he remember, we remember that smell, but we never took it on.
04:40 Hannah was the name given to the baby girl born to Alana Jiro and Andrew Matura in 1999.
04:49 In the biblical sense, Hannah's story was one of strength, courage, persistent prayer,
04:55 and unwavering commitment to seeking God's face.
04:59 Hannah Matura would have been 25 years old this year.
05:04 Urvashi Tamari, Rupnairain, TV6 News.
05:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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