In 2010, St. Anthony Hospital’s Dr.Jawaharlal Henriques called the cause of Denyse Sweeney’s death “death due to drug overdose leading tocongestion in lungs”. Manjunath Desai, the then PI Anjuna said “We did notnotice any injuries on her body except scratcheson both the knees. So we registered the death as unnatural”.
However, GMC Forensic Department’sDr. Mandar P. Kantak saw nothing unnatural about this death. His post mortemreport did not state that the cause of death was due to drug overdose and liquorand instead says that it was due to oedema (excess accumulation of water in theintracellular or extracellular spaces of the brain) and congestion in lungs.GMC sources revealed that there was swelling in the brain and lungs. There weremultiple injuries on Denyse’s body and the cause of death was due to assault.
In 2012, SP (North) Vijay Singhsought a second opinion from GMC’s Forensic Dept Head Dr. Silvano Dias Sapecoprior to reopening the case. This is where the twist is. There are strongindications that Dr Sapeco’s report differed from his junior colleagues DrKantaks’s PM report of 2010. Most importantly the Goa police did not find DrSapeco’s report too convincing. In other words it chose to give weight to DrKantak’s findings and decide to reopen the case as murder.
