SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Mau­reen Vil­laru­el spent 57 re­lent­less days search­ing for her com­mon-law hus­band, Leon Seemu­n­gal, who went to the bank to cash a $73,500 lump sum pen­sion cheque and then mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­peared.

In Vil­laru­el’s quest to find Seemu­n­gal, she knocked on every neigh­bour’s door in her Ari­ma com­mu­ni­ty, called friends and fam­i­ly, turned to the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team for help and al­so made a miss­ing per­son’s re­port at two po­lice sta­tions.

Re­fus­ing to give up, she trav­elled to the far-flung com­mu­ni­ty of Blan­chisseuse where she be­lieved Seemu­n­gal, a jack of all trades, had been held cap­tive against his will in a hut for his “big mon­ey”.

How­ev­er, af­ter six Ari­ma CID of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ed Vil­laru­el’s re­port on Mon­day, the po­lice found Seemu­n­gal, 68, liv­ing com­fort­ably in a fur­nished apart­ment.

Their in­ves­ti­ga­tions brought clo­sure to Vil­laru­el’s per­sis­tent hunt for Seemu­n­gal who told po­lice he had end­ed the 20-year re­la­tion­ship with Vil­laru­el and had no de­sire to re­turn home.

Vil­laru­el was shat­tered and left in de­nial af­ter the man she loved dear­ly re­ject­ed her.

Seemu­n­gal went miss­ing

On Mon­day, Vil­laru­el went to a so­cial work­er for help, claim­ing she was go­ing around in cir­cles look­ing for Seemu­n­gal and want­ed the me­dia to pub­lish his dis­ap­pear­ance.

This re­porter was con­tact­ed and met Vil­laru­el out­side the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion where she re­lat­ed the sto­ry about her two months of per­sis­tent search for Seemu­n­gal and the po­lice’s un­will­ing­ness to help.

On Sep­tem­ber 30, Vil­laru­el said Seemu­n­gal col­lect­ed a lump sum “pen­sion cheque of $73,500” at TTPost and went with a vil­lager to cash it at First Cit­i­zens Bank in Ari­ma on Oc­to­ber 2 but nev­er re­turned home, while re­peat­ed calls to his cell­phone went unan­swered.

She told the Sun­day Guardian that neigh­bours, fam­i­ly and friends of Seemu­n­gal had not seen or heard from him.

She in­sist­ed that the vil­lager who trans­port­ed Seemu­n­gal had been eye­ing Seemu­n­gal’s mon­ey and felt some­thing bad had hap­pened to him.

This wor­ried Vil­laru­el to no end.

Deep down in her heart, Vil­laru­el had one feel­ing: “I thought he had been kid­napped for his mon­ey and was be­ing ill-treat­ed,” the moth­er of three ad­mit­ted.

“I didn’t go with him to the bank be­cause that same day I had to do eye surgery at the Ari­ma hos­pi­tal,” Vil­laru­el be­gan ex­plain­ing.

“Leon had plans for his mon­ey ... he want­ed to buy a ve­hi­cle and re­move the cataract from his right eye.”

Vil­laru­el and Seemu­n­gal have no chil­dren to­geth­er.

Two days af­ter Seemu­n­gal’s strange dis­ap­pear­ance, Vil­laru­el said her cu­rios­i­ty peaked when her home was bro­ken in­to and three weed whack­ers and Seemu­n­gal’s pass­port were stolen.

There she be­gan seek­ing help to find him.

First, she sought as­sis­tance from the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team who in turn passed on the in­for­ma­tion to the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit.

On No­vem­ber 4, she made a re­port at the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion where of­fi­cers ad­vised her to lodge a miss­ing per­son’s re­port at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion which she did on No­vem­ber 7, but this was not doc­u­ment­ed on the po­lice’s end.

In­stead, two of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the vil­lager’s home and ques­tioned him about Seemu­n­gal’s where­abouts.

“He told the po­lice he doh know where Leon was,” Vil­laru­el said.

The po­lice, she said, nev­er pur­sued her re­port fur­ther.

“I was left feel­ing help­less and hope­less.”

Af­ter weeks of no feed­back, on No­vem­ber 22, Vil­laru­el hired a taxi and went to Blan­chisseuse, a com­mu­ni­ty Seemu­n­gal had fre­quent­ed with the vil­lager to get pro­duce on a farm.

Be­hind the farm, she no­ticed a new­ly built hut which led her to be­lieve that Seemu­n­gal was stay­ing there against his wish­es.

Af­ter show­ing res­i­dents a snap­shot of Seemu­n­gal’s ID card, Vil­laru­el said one woman said his face looked fa­mil­iar.

“If I had back up I would ah check the in­side of the hut,” she said.

Even­tu­al­ly, Vil­laru­el abort­ed her prob­ing.

Un­able to eat and sleep, Vil­laru­el thought the worst had hap­pened to Seemu­n­gal af­ter weeks of not hear­ing from him.

“I say, well, they kill him.”

Then she got an un­ex­pect­ed tele­phone call from Seemu­n­gal on Sun­day.

“He was cry­ing and say­ing he want­ed help. He was talk­ing hoarse ... sound­ing weak.”

That call left Vil­laru­el in tears.

“I kept won­der­ing if he was get­ting med­ica­tion for his high blood pres­sure and di­a­betes. Leon was sound­ing so down ... He made tears come out of meh eyes. I feel hurt be­cause he was call­ing for help and I couldn’t help him.”

Be­fore Vil­laru­el could ask Seemu­n­gal where he was, she said a woman grabbed the phone and told her he was not com­ing back home.

Vil­laru­el said she recog­nised the woman’s voice to be an­oth­er res­i­dent in her com­mu­ni­ty.

She said peo­ple in the area where they live saw two vil­lagers buy­ing ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture.

Vil­laru­el con­clud­ed that the vil­lagers were us­ing Seemu­n­gal’s bank card to pur­chase the items to fur­nish the hut.

How Vil­laru­el found out

On Mon­day, Vil­laru­el asked the so­cial work­er to ac­com­pa­ny her to the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion to make an­oth­er miss­ing per­son’s re­port but, again, she left dis­ap­point­ed.

The of­fi­cer who took the re­port wrote on Vil­laru­el’s re­ceipt “in­for­ma­tion” and not “miss­ing per­son”.

“I felt like I was be­ing bounced around and the po­lice was show­ing no in­ter­est,” she com­plained.

From the sta­tion, Vil­laru­el went to First Cit­i­zens Bank to find out if Seemu­n­gal had cashed the cheque but a su­per­vi­sor told her on­ly the po­lice could re­quest that in­for­ma­tion as she did not have a joint ac­count with him.

Re­fus­ing to give up, Vil­laru­el went to the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion seek­ing help, where two of­fi­cers took her back to the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion to make an­oth­er com­plaint.

This time the mat­ter was put in­to the hands of PC Ke­muel Mc­Dow­ell of the CID de­part­ment who be­gan con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions with Cpl Shawn Gor­don and PCs Singh, Jones and Punter head­ed by Sgt Sher­win Haynes af­ter learn­ing that Seemu­n­gal had been miss­ing 57 days and reached out to Vil­laru­el for help hours be­fore.

The po­lice im­me­di­ate­ly ac­com­pa­nied Vil­laru­el back to her com­mu­ni­ty where they be­gan con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“We got cer­tain in­for­ma­tion and we were able to lo­cate the man (Seemu­n­gal) who we had a con­ver­sa­tion with to find out what tran­spired to en­sure he was not kid­napped, miss­ing or be­ing used for his pen­sion mon­ey,” Mc Dow­ell told the Sun­day Guardian in a tele­phone in­ter­view on Wednes­day.

Seemu­n­gal told the in­ves­ti­ga­tors that he was safe and liv­ing com­fort­ably in an apart­ment he had fur­nished util­is­ing his pen­sion mon­ey.

Seemu­n­gal in­vit­ed the of­fi­cers to his new home where he was in­ter­viewed.

“We saw his liv­ing con­di­tions and he has every­thing. He is in con­tact with his fam­i­ly. He used his mon­ey to buy a stove, fridge, mi­crowave and wash­ing ma­chine. Is a re­al bach­e­lor set-up,” Mc­Dow­ell said.

Opt­ing not to dis­close Seemu­n­gal’s new ad­dress, Mc­Dow­ell said it was nowhere close to Blan­chisseuse.

Mc­Dow­ell said, “The man ba­si­cal­ly moved away for his peace of mind be­cause he was hav­ing is­sues with the woman.”

Asked how Vil­laru­el took the news, Mc Dow­ell said “She is still in de­nial.”

“It’s not like he ups and went. He in­formed the neigh­bours in the area what he was do­ing. So they know where he was lo­cat­ed. She (Vil­laru­el) was the on­ly per­son who did not know. We em­pathise and sym­pa­thise with her when we heard the sto­ry.”

Mc­Dow­ell said what was shock­ing was that the res­i­dents had kept this a se­cret from Vil­laru­el.

“She was the last to find out.”

Sev­er­al calls to Seemu­n­gal’s cell­phone went unan­swered on Mon­day.