Yvonne Webb

The bad­ly burnt body of Michelle Coudray, daugh­ter of San Fer­nan­do May­or Mar­lene Coudray, who went miss­ing on June 2 in Ja­maica, was dis­cov­ered yes­ter­day evening in a Mon­tego Bay cane­field. News Ed­i­tor of the Glean­er news­pa­per, Adri­an Frater, told the T&T Guardian, via tele­phone last night, Michelle's body was dis­cov­ered short­ly af­ter 4.30 pm Ja­maican time (5.30 pm TT time). Frater said the body was burnt be­yond recog­ni­tion but friends were able to con­firm her iden­ti­ty by her teeth and a bracelet she wore. Calls to Coudray's tele­phone last night went unan­swered. How­ev­er, a close friend who was at her home, said she was too dis­traught to speak. Sob­bing could be heard in the back­ground. The friend said Coudray, who was in the process of pack­ing her suit­case to go to Ja­maica to­day, in search of her daugh­ter, re­ceived a call from that coun­try around 7 pm, con­firm­ing her worse night­mare. Ear­li­er, TV6 News at sev­en, quot­ed Steve Brown, Ja­maican Deputy Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice, as say­ing a body was found near to where Michelle went miss­ing. In spite of this lat­est de­vel­op­ment, Coudray still in­tends to make the trip to­day with her part­ner Lar­ry Achong to con­firm the iden­ti­ty and bring her daugh­ter's re­mains home.

Ear­li­er yes­ter­day the may­or made a pas­sion­ate ap­peal for the re­turn of her daugh­ter. "If some­one has her, please re­lease my daugh­ter. She has three young chil­dren who are miss­ing her," she said. The Ja­maican Ob­serv­er re­port­ed Michelle, 38, was last seen at about 12.30 am on June 2 in the Corn­wall Courts area of St James, a few me­tres from her Mon­tego Bay apart­ment. Coudray has been tak­ing care of Michelle's chil­dren, who are 11, sev­en and five years old re­spec­tive­ly, since ear­li­er this year while their moth­er teach­es at a Mon­tego Bay school in Ja­maica. Michelle, who was sep­a­rat­ed from her Ja­maican hus­band, pre­vi­ous­ly worked with Air Ja­maica and at the San­dals Re­sort. "We are pray­ing and we are hope­ful that this is just a tem­po­rary thing which we will over­come," Coudray said in an in­ter­view at her Ste Madeleine home. "I don't know that any­one would want to harm her. She was well-known in Ja­maica and loved by all," she said. Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Michelle's 11-year old daugh­ter hugged her grand­moth­er and asked: "When is mum­my com­ing home?" A dis­traught Coudray re­spond­ed: "We don't know when mum­my is com­ing back." Coudray, a deputy leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters have called to ex­press sol­i­dar­i­ty.

How­ev­er, she has not sought Gov­ern­ment help. "It is a pri­vate and per­son­al mat­ter and I am deal­ing with it," she said. Speak­ing about the dis­ap­pear­ance which has left her fam­i­ly shat­tered, Coudray said Michelle re­turned from Ja­maica on May 6 for her son's birth­day. Coudray was at the time in Be­lize at­tend­ing a lo­cal gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence and asked Michelle to stay un­til she re­turned. "She stayed for three weeks and left for Ja­maica on In­di­an Ar­rival Day. She called on May 31 to say she had ar­rived safe­ly," she said. Coudray ex­plained that Michelle had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems with her tele­phone, so she thought noth­ing of it when she did not ini­tial­ly re­spond to calls. She said her in­ter­net con­nec­tion at home was al­so not work­ing so they had no oth­er con­tact with her. Coudray said her es­tranged son-in-law's moth­er called her last week and ex­pressed con­cern Michelle could not be found, af­ter she failed to keep a date to vis­it his fam­i­ly. They al­so made a re­port to the po­lice. Coudray said her daugh­ter had some med­ical chal­lenges so she asked that they checked hos­pi­tals. "I am leav­ing this morn­ing (Tues­day) for one week, which is enough time to know some­thing, one way or an­oth­er. If we have to ex­tend the time, we will, or if we have to go and come back, we will," she said.