More than a year after 11-year-old Adrianna Younge’s body was recovered from a Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo hotel pool, Guyana’s Director of Public Prosecutions has greenlit a formal inquest to fully examine the circumstances of her April 2025 death, law enforcement officials confirmed Tuesday. The inquest will specifically probe the root cause and contextual details surrounding the child’s death, which occurred between April 23 and 24, 2025 at the Double Day Hotel property.
The Guyana Police Force announced Tuesday that it has received the DPP’s formal direction and is moving forward with all required procedural steps aligned with local law. In a statement accompanying the announcement, the agency emphasized its commitment to maintaining public trust in sensitive death investigations, noting it will uphold strict standards of professionalism, accountability and integrity throughout the inquest process.
Younge’s body was first discovered in the Double Day Hotel swimming pool on April 24, 2025. By May 26 of that same year, police had announced that a final postmortem examination conducted by three internationally recognized forensic pathologists had officially ruled the child’s death a drowning, with no evidence of foul play.
To address public and family concerns surrounding the death, the autopsy was a collaborative effort involving multiple independent experts. Two pathologists—Dr. Glenn A. Rudner and Dr. Shubhakar Karra Paul—were commissioned by the Guyana government to conduct the initial examination on May 3, 2025. Younge’s family and their legal representative, Darren Wade, arranged for an additional independent expert: Dr. Gary L. Collins, the Trinidad and Tobago-born Chief Medical Examiner for the U.S. state of Delaware, who also joined the examination.
The full forensic report released by police outlined a series of consistent findings all aligned with a drowning ruling. The examination confirmed no evidence of sexual assault: an external examination found the child’s hymen intact and no abnormal changes to genital tissue. No traumatic injuries were detected across soft tissue or skeletal structures, and all injuries observed on the skin were confirmed to have occurred after death, caused by prolonged submersion in water.
Key forensic markers consistent with drowning were documented during the examination: a residual foam cone was found in Younge’s nostrils and oral cavity—dispelling widespread online rumors that cotton wool had been placed in the child’s nose. Characteristic “washerwoman” wrinkling of the skin on both hands and the soles of the feet, a common change caused by prolonged immersion in water and consistent with drowning, was also noted. Forensic experts found approximately 1 milliliter of fluid in the sphenoid sinus, an air-filled cavity at the base of the brain that is a common marker of drowning, and additional fluid was detected in the lungs, another consistent indicator of death by drowning.
Comprehensive supplementary testing, including toxicology screening and DNA analysis, further supported the ruling of drowning with no foul play. Toxicology results found low levels of ethanol that were consistent with natural postmortem decomposition, not pre-death consumption. Testing conducted as part of a sexual assault investigation and DNA analysis for potential suspects returned negative results. There was also no evidence of restraint, a struggle, or that the child’s body had been moved and returned to the pool after death.
The new inquest ordered by the DPP will open a formal public inquiry into the death, marking the next step in the legal process following the initial postmortem findings.