RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Rus­sell Be­dasse says he will have to live with the pain of know­ing his moth­er, 57-year-old Shelawai­htie “Meera” Be­dasse, might have been saved if po­lice had act­ed when she first went miss­ing.

Speak­ing through tears at his Coro­man­dle Vil­lage, Ce­dros home yes­ter­day, Be­dasse said he last spoke to his moth­er around 8 am on Tues­day, when she gave him a phone num­ber he need­ed. He said he ex­pect­ed her home by evening, as was their rou­tine, but when she did not ar­rive, dread set in. Calls to her phone went unan­swered and by night­fall, Be­dasse re­port­ed her miss­ing to Ce­dros Po­lice.

How­ev­er, rather than search for her, his po­lice col­leagues did not act. Be­dasse said he made his own en­quiries and combed through footage and in­ter­viewed peo­ple, even­tu­al­ly pro­vid­ing po­lice with a name, ad­dress and ve­hi­cle num­ber of some­one who picked up his moth­er near her work­place at Bet­ter Deal Su­per­mar­ket. He ex­pressed pain at his col­leagues’ in­dif­fer­ence.

“A woman is miss­ing in Point Fortin from 6 pm yes­ter­day and the South­west­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force was sleep­ing whole night. The ve­hi­cles were parked in the com­pound whole night. They nev­er came to as­sist,” he said, his voice break­ing.

Be­dasse said when the sus­pect was ar­rest­ed, he was de­tained briefly and re­leased af­ter claim­ing he dropped her at the beach—a place Meera nev­er liked.

“He laughed as he left the sta­tion,” Be­dasse said bit­ter­ly.

The next morn­ing, Be­dasse said his worst fears came true. His moth­er’s body was found hang­ing from a tree near Clifton Hill beach yes­ter­day.

In­stead of open­ing a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion, how­ev­er, his col­leagues wrote it off as sui­cide. Be­dasse said he felt dis­ap­point­ment and anger.

“How can a five feet three inch­es woman reach a height of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 feet?” he asked.

“My moth­er is not ca­pa­ble of ty­ing a per­fect hang­man’s noose. She was phys­i­cal­ly weak. She couldn’t even tie her shoes prop­er­ly.”

He de­scribed the way her body hung—the rope, the bent knees, the un­nat­ur­al po­si­tion of her arms—and in­sist­ed it was not sui­cide.

“I have the opin­ion that my moth­er was mur­dered and the scene was de­signed to ap­pear to be a sui­cide.”

For Be­dasse, the in­ac­tion of his own col­leagues made his grief even worse. He said se­nior of­fi­cers nev­er called him, nev­er vis­it­ed, and left him to chase an­swers alone.

“I had to make hun­dreds of calls my­self,” he said.

“Up to this time, I haven’t re­ceived a call or a vis­it from any se­nior per­son in the po­lice ser­vice. Not one sin­gle per­son.”

The sus­pect, he not­ed, had been re­leased from de­ten­tion on firearm-re­lat­ed mat­ters just one day be­fore his moth­er dis­ap­peared. He was the last per­son seen with her alive.

Now, a griev­ing son is left with unan­swered ques­tions and a bro­ken trust in the very in­sti­tu­tion he serves.

“I am a serv­ing mem­ber of the po­lice ser­vice, and I am ashamed,” he ad­mit­ted.

“If I don’t get sup­port as a serv­ing mem­ber, what is left for the gen­er­al pub­lic?”

Through tears, he made a vow for jus­tice.

“I will not rest. I will not rest. I will not rest.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­varo for a com­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful.