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Thursday, February 20, 2025

Body of Palo Seco drowning victim found

by

23 days ago
20250129

Sascha Wil­son

Rel­a­tives of 19-year-old Justin Thomas ex­pe­ri­enced a mix of re­lief and gut-wrench­ing sad­ness yes­ter­day af­ter his body was found two days af­ter he drowned at Sobo Beach in Pa­lo Seco.

Rel­a­tives had been pray­ing for clo­sure, and around 8.10 am yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team, led by Val­lence Ramb­harat, found Thomas’ body on some rocks near the shore­line, about three miles from where he dis­ap­peared on Sun­day.

On Sun­day, Thomas and his friends were swim­ming, when they be­gan to ex­pe­ri­ence a strong cur­rent in the wa­ter. They be­gan to head back to shore, but he be­gan to ex­pe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty about 400 feet away and was seen float­ing. His friends tried to help him, but he dis­ap­peared un­der the wa­ter.

Speak­ing at her San­ta Flo­ra home af­ter re­turn­ing from the scene, Thomas’ moth­er, Eliz­a­beth, 51, said her son could swim, but she be­lieves he did not re­alise he was in deep wa­ter.

“When he re­alised that his foot could not touch the ground, he prob­a­bly pan­icked or by that time the cur­rent done pull him,” she said.

She said Justin was a re­spectable young man and loved by every­one.

“He was on­ly 19 years old. He al­ways liked weld­ing. He want­ed to be a welder,” she said.

Thomas said ini­tial­ly she kept cling­ing to hope that her son was still alive, but yes­ter­day morn­ing, be­fore she got the news that his body was found, she just knew he was dead.

“I sit down, I cry and talk to God. I re­al pray. Every­body giv­ing me ad­vice to go by the sea and put your breast, and let me tell you some­thing, God did that for me. That is what I asked him for. I am not go­ing to pray to no ocean. God is in con­trol of that.

“I asked him to let that ocean re­lease my son, and that is how I got my child.”

Thomas said God was keep­ing her strong.

“God gave me the strength. When I see my son’s body this morn­ing, is some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent.”

She thanked the search and res­cue team and every­one who searched for him and sup­port­ed them.

San­ta Flo­ra po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.


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