HANOVER, Jamaica – The main suspect in the death of nine-year-old Nikita Noel, who was found dead in bushes at the side of a road in her home community of Kew in Hanover last month, has been charged.

Forty-two-year-old Omar Green, a construction worker of a Barbary Hill, Lucea address, the intimate partner of Nikita’s mother, was charged with murder and rape late Thursday evening.

Green is to make an appearance in court next week.

READ: Suspect held in rape, murder of 9-year-old girl

The funeral service for Noel is expected to be held on Saturday.

On Thursday, Head of the Hanover Police Division Superintendent Sharon Beeput told the monthly general meeting of the Hanover Municipal Corporation that the suspect, who is in protective custody, will be charged before the end of the week. She had stated that the police were 99 per cent closer to charging the suspect.

“We would love to do it before the funeral service on Saturday. So, we are working together to see… We have to meet with lawyers based on certain things but it is so close… That is something that we are very positive about and I guess when everything has been put together, the division can breathe a sigh of relief because everybody is watching that particular matter. And I think we did a good job at our investigation,” stated Superintendent Beeput.

A day following Nikita’s death, Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area One, Clifford Chambers, spoke on the matter.

“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 OBSERVER ONLINE then.

READ: UPDATE: Suspect in rape, murder of 9-y-o Hanover girl known to family – Police

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.