The Miss­ing Ones

When peo­ple go miss­ing, and un­til they are found, it is like an open wound for fam­i­lies. In T&T, some are found alive while oth­ers are found dead. Many just van­ish. The un­cer­tain­ty and lack of clo­sure leave many fam­i­lies un­able to move on. In 2018, the then po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith in­tro­duced a Cold Case Miss­ing Per­sons Unit ded­i­cat­ed to find­ing peo­ple who have been miss­ing for long pe­ri­ods.

This week, the Sun­day Guardian takes a look at our miss­ing cit­i­zens.

Joshua Seemu­n­gal and Shal­iza Has­sanali

In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk

Over the last six years, a per­son has been miss­ing every 11-and-a-half hours in T&T, with an av­er­age of more than two miss­ing peo­ple re­ports dai­ly.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 2018 and De­cem­ber 19, 2023, 4,546 peo­ple were re­port­ed miss­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), ac­cord­ing to da­ta.

Of the peo­ple re­port­ed miss­ing for that pe­ri­od, 13 per cent or 595 peo­ple still can’t be found. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 83 per cent were found (3,768 peo­ple), while four per cent (183 peo­ple) were con­sid­ered dead or found dead.

Most peo­ple re­port­ed miss­ing were women, ac­count­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 55 per cent.

Young women be­tween the ages of 15 and 19 were the peo­ple most com­mon­ly re­port­ed miss­ing. The ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple, around 52 per cent, were be­tween the ages of 15 years old and 19 years old.

Thir­teen per cent of those re­port­ed miss­ing were in their 20s; ten per cent were in their 30s; sev­en per cent were in their 40s; six per cent were in their 50s; and 12 per cent were over 60 years old.

Here is how that da­ta stacks up

Break­ing down the num­bers by di­vi­sions, the North­ern Di­vi­sion had the most miss­ing re­ports, while the di­vi­sion with the least num­ber of re­ports was To­ba­go.

* The North­ern Di­vi­sion (Ari­ma, Arou­ca, Cu­mu­to, La Hor­quet­ta, Mal­abar, Mal­oney, Pi­ar­co, Mara­cas/St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, San Raphael, St Joseph) had the most re­port­ed miss­ing peo­ple dur­ing that pe­ri­od with 922 re­ports;

* The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion (Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va, Ca­roni, Canu­pia, Bras­so, Freeport, Las Lo­mas, Long­denville) with 733 and;

* The South­ern Di­vi­sion (San Fer­nan­do, Bar­rack­pore, Gas­par­il­lo, Mara­bel­la, Mon Re­pos, Moru­ga, Princes Town, Ste. Madeleine, St Mary’s) with 728.

* The di­vi­sion with the least num­ber of re­port­ed peo­ple was To­ba­go with 133, fol­lowed by the South West­ern Di­vi­sion (Siparia, Ce­dros, Erin, Point Fortin, Guapo, Fyz­abad, La Brea, Oropouche, Pe­nal, San­ta Flo­ra, Siparia) with 370.

For the re­port­ed pe­ri­od, 2023 had the low­est num­ber of re­ports with 673, fol­lowed by 2022 with 681.

2019 was the year with the most re­ports–940. This was 155 more re­ports than the sec­ond-high­est to­tal, which was in 2018.

Hunters Search and Res­cue Team

The Hunters Search and Res­cue Team (HSRT) have been record­ing their own da­ta.

Ac­cord­ing to the da­ta they shared with the Sun­day Guardian, from Jan­u­ary 1 to No­vem­ber 30 of this year, 482 peo­ple were re­port­ed miss­ing.

Of this fig­ure, cap­tain of the HSRT Val­lence Ramb­harat said 424 peo­ple were found while 58 re­mained un­ac­count­ed for.

The HSRT record­ed 371 miss­ing peo­ple last year, while the TTPS re­ceived 552 miss­ing per­son re­ports with 466 ac­count­ed for in­clud­ing 30 peo­ple found dead.

Ramb­harat said po­lice fig­ures al­ways re­flect­ed a 20 per cent “top-up” on HSRT’s sta­tis­tics.

The dev­il is re­al­ly in the de­tails.

Over the last 11 months, Ramb­harat re­vealed that 328 of the miss­ing peo­ple were un­der the age of 18. It al­so showed that 322 were fe­males, 24 of whom are still miss­ing.

In the age brack­et 18 to 60, 121 were re­port­ed miss­ing.

There were 34 miss­ing per­son re­ports of peo­ple over the age of 60, 23 of whom were males and 11 fe­males.

So far, sev­en males and three el­der­ly fe­males have not been found.

Com­par­ing last year’s fig­ure of peo­ple over the age of 60 who went miss­ing, Ramb­harat said there were 17, six of whom were fe­male and 11 males.

“Six­teen of these miss­ing per­sons were ac­count­ed for.”

He said the DNA re­sult of one male whose body was found was still pend­ing.

Ramb­harat said in 2022 se­nior cit­i­zens over the age of 60 rep­re­sent­ed 4.5 per cent of the to­tal num­ber of miss­ing peo­ple.

This year, the fig­ure jumped to sev­en per cent.

He said the HSRT was not over­ly wor­ried about younger teenagers who go miss­ing as they tend to re­turn home.

“The cat­e­gories that we are con­cerned about are the 18 to 60 and 60 and over who may be homi­cide vic­tims.”

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he said, some of these se­nior cit­i­zens who suf­fer from de­men­tia and Alzheimer’s dis­ease are nev­er found.

Oth­ers, Ramb­harat said, end up in con­flict with fam­i­ly mem­bers and strangers over in­her­i­tance and what they pos­sess. “We don’t know for sure if they are pushed out from the se­cu­ri­ty of their homes and that is dis­turb­ing to us.”

Ramb­harat said some of the el­der­ly were found wan­der­ing on the streets or in hos­pi­tals.

Some of the cas­es re­port­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od in­clude:

* Feb­ru­ary 2018–Kel­ly Street res­i­dent Coreen Singh dis­ap­peared af­ter leav­ing her home. She was nev­er found. Friends said Coreen told them she had a meet­ing at a male friend’s apart­ment to dis­cuss her im­pend­ing di­vorce.

* March 2018–Moth­er of sev­en Kumti De­op­er­sad re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter walk­ing out of a health fa­cil­i­ty. She lat­er con­tact­ed her hus­band to say she was ab­duct­ed by four men. A week lat­er, she re­turned home, say­ing she es­caped her cap­tors by us­ing a hair­pin to un­lock a door.

* June 2018–20-year-old Shar­day Em­manuel dis­ap­peared af­ter leav­ing her Mamoral home. She was nev­er found.

* Sep­tem­ber 2018–Up­per Lev­el Ed­u­ca­tion­al In­sti­tute Span­ish teacher Su­san May­nard left her Char­lieville home in Sep­tem­ber to buy a phone card at a near­by par­lour but was nev­er found.

* Sep­tem­ber 2018–Gan­gad­har Hanooman went miss­ing af­ter stop­ping at a veg­etable stall on his way to his Roys­to­nia home. He was nev­er found.

* Sep­tem­ber 2018–San Fer­nan­do res­i­dent Na­tal­ie Pol­lon­ais was res­cued by po­lice af­ter be­ing kid­napped short­ly af­ter leav­ing the Cen­tral Ath­let­ics Clubs at the C3 com­plex.

* No­vem­ber 2018–16-year-old Shind­lar Cuffy went miss­ing af­ter leav­ing home in a taxi that was sup­posed to take her to school at Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School. Her rel­a­tives be­lieved she was lured to join a cult. She was nev­er found.

* March 2019–17-year-old Pen­ny­wise em­ploy­ee Ne­tanya Mo­ham­dal­ly was found stabbed to death in a mud­dy pud­dle af­ter be­ing re­port­ed miss­ing five days ear­li­er. She left home at Gas­ton Street to vis­it her fa­ther.

* April 2019–36-year-old Stephan Suroogdeo was re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter he was last seen in Va­len­cia.

* Au­gust 2019–Shan­ice Coop­er, six months preg­nant at the time, dis­ap­peared af­ter leav­ing her Bel­mont home. She was nev­er found, but in 2021, a 37-year-old man, known to her, was charged with her mur­der.

* Sep­tem­ber 2019–73-year-old Ken­rick Ti­tus was last seen at his Rousil­lac home. Ti­tus, who had Alzheimer’s, was not found.

* Oc­to­ber 2019–15-year-old Bri­an­na Toll dis­ap­peared af­ter last be­ing seen at her Bar­rack­pore home. She was nev­er seen again.

* No­vem­ber 2019–19-year-old Mar­lon Burke Jnr was last seen along Tumpuna Road in Ari­ma. He was nev­er found.

* March 2020–Dri­ver Clevon Bruce van­ished with­out a trace.

June 2020–Jo­evon In­niss of Barataria re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter he was last seen dri­ving his car. The ve­hi­cle was found aban­doned but he was nev­er found.

* Ju­ly 2020–24-year-old Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Grace Roberts dis­ap­peared af­ter en­ter­ing a taxi nev­er to be seen again.

* Au­gust 2020–Princess Phillips, 16 years old at the time, was last seen at her fam­i­ly home be­fore she left to vis­it a friend. She told her par­ents that she was be­ing fol­lowed by a group of men on her way home from class­es at Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School. She has nev­er been found.

* Feb­ru­ary 2021–Shazi­da Nag­amootoo of Williamsville was last seen leav­ing her Las Lo­mas home.

* May 2021–28-year-old Carpichaima farmer Beck­er See­lal left home to col­lect mon­ey from a cus­tomer but was not seen again.

* June 2021–An­nal­isa Gookool of Ve­ga De Oropouche was re­port­ed miss­ing, but her body was lat­er found. A man was charged with her mur­der.

* Ju­ly 2021–17-year-old Venezue­lan Noirelle Benere dis­ap­peared and is still un­ac­count­ed for.

* De­cem­ber 2021–29-year-old Fil­ipino Ly­ka Bernas was last seen at her Jern­ing­ham Av­enue, Bel­mont home, but re­mains miss­ing.

* May 2022–Pe­tit Val­ley res­i­dent Oliv­er Thomas, 62 years old, re­mains miss­ing.

* June 2022–39-year-old An­na Maria Aimey of Palmiste was re­port­ed miss­ing and it’s un­clear if she was found.

* June 2022–31-year-old San­jay De­o­dath went miss­ing in Moru­ga. Po­lice lat­er found his truck with blood stains in it aban­doned in Co­coyea. He was not found.

* Au­gust 2022–21-year-old Blan­chisseuse farmer Ore­on Gomez has not been since leav­ing home to meet, what he be­lieved, was a girl he met on­line for a date.

* Sep­tem­ber 2022–40-year-old Fondes Aman­des, St Ann’s na­tive Soli­na Gar­nes went miss­ing; she re­mains miss­ing.

* No­vem­ber 2022–32-year-old Ja­maican na­tion­al Ki­malee Lar­mond was last seen leav­ing her Chase Vil­lage home. To date, there have been no leads about her dis­ap­pear­ance.

* April 2023–Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent Justin Awai, a wa­ter taxi em­ploy­ee, is still miss­ing.

* April 2023–Venezue­lan res­i­dent Louis To­var, who suf­fers from Alzheimer’s, was re­port­ed miss­ing. A hu­man skull was found dur­ing a search for him.

* May 2023–Dri­ver Viv­ion Sama­roo was re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter go­ing on a pri­vate job.

* Sep­tem­ber 2023–Christi­na Ad­sett went miss­ing af­ter she was last seen clean­ing the front of her home/busi­ness, Christi­na’s Foot Spa. When po­lice vis­it­ed her home, they found the back door open but there were no signs of forced en­try. Christi­na’s cell phone and car keys were found in the house.

* De­cem­ber 2023–The search for 28-year-old elec­tri­cian Shi­va Lochan con­tin­ues. He left home af­ter a call­out for work.

Peo­ple 60 and over re­port­ed miss­ing in 2023

* Cuth­bert Tan­nis, 61, Mara­cas-St Joseph

* Dane Clarke, 65, San Juan

* Ur­sus Daniel, 62, Ari­ma

* Hugo Bruce, 77, Princes Town

* Ju­nior Daniel, 61, Barataria

* Ava Hospedales, 66, Laven­tille

* Robert James Sooran, 72, Princes Town

* Chester Greene, 76, Trinci­ty

* Rod­ney Radar Lewis, 60, D’Abadie

* Son­ny Fitzger­ald Vir­gil, 76, San­ta Cruz

* Leon Har­ry Seemu­n­gal, 68, Ari­ma

* Sheila Gill, 72, Mor­vant

* Trevor Ed­wards, 69, Cou­va

* Gre­go­ry Gor­don, 67, Ch­agua­nas

* Bas­deo Boodoos­ingh, 76, Cou­va

* James Jor­dan, 68, Point Fortin

* Ir­ma Joseph, 84, Beetham Gar­dens

* Claire Jones, 80, San Fer­nan­do

* Ramhar­rack Ram, 84, Clax­ton Bay

* Christo­pher Fe­lix, 76, Ch­agua­nas

* Prakash Bis­ram, 67, Debe

* Gre­go­ry Ward, 62, D’Abadie

* Joyce Howard, 84, St Joseph

* Gi­ta Ram­nath, 60, Rio Claro

* Christo­pher Mitchum, 64, Diego Mar­tin

* Ken­neth La Rode, 60, Fyz­abad

* Ce­cil Beck­les, 67

* Sa­hadeo Ram­sa­roop, 65, Princes Town

Se­nior cit­i­zens still miss­ing

* An­tho­ny De Couteau, 71, Guapo

* Es­mond Byam, 73, Ari­ma

* Christi­na Ad­sette, 62, Pe­nal

* San­dra Singh, 76, Pi­ar­co Old Road