KEW, Hanover — There is still no one charged in connection with the death of nine-year-old Nikita Noel who was found dead in Hanover three weeks ago. The person of interest remains in police custody.

Young Nikita’s body was found in bushes at the side of a road in her home community of Kew on February 1. Speculations are that she was raped before being strangled to death.

A man who is said to be in a relationship with Nikita’s mother, Nordia Edwards, was taken into protective custody after the child’s body was found. Head of the police’s Corporate Communications Unit Senior Superintendent of Police Stephanie Lindsay said all the procedures have been followed in order to keep the man in police custody as investigations continue.

“In certain investigations, if the mandatory time of 72 hours passes, we try and put the matter before a judge who will look at the circumstances and can do a remand, pending investigations. So they would not have him in there without the proper remand in place,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday.

SSP Lindsay said the police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem conducted on February 10 as well as the results of a forensic examination of items submitted.

“After that, then they [investigators] will make a determination as to how they proceed next,” she said.

Three weeks ago Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area One Clifford Chambers spoke of the ties the man in custody has to Nikita’s family.

“We know that the mother’s intimate partner, they had an issue between them and that is one of the lines of inquiry which is being followed,” ACP Chambers told the Observer then.

Nikita, who family members fondly called Joanna, was a student at Esher Primary. She reportedly travelled from school with her usual taxi driver. She and other passengers exited the cab at the usual spot, the foot of a dirt road leading up a hill to where her family lives. The child’s mother raised an alarm after she did not return home and could not be found. Community members and the police launched a search and her body was found a few feet from the entrance to her house.