Elizabeth Gonzales
Senior Reporter
elizabeth.gonzales@guardian.co.tt
For Amelia Cross, the discovery of 56 bodies being placed into a single grave at the Cumuto Cemetery has reopened a painful question her family has carried for since October 2025.
Was her brother, Emmanuel Cross, ever properly tagged, identified and handled?
Cross said her family has been searching for answers after a body bearing Emmanuel’s name was shown to the family — only for her to later realise it was not him.
Now, she fears he may be among the bodies police recovered in Cumuto.
“It would give us closure,” she said.
Police have not publicly identified the 56 bodies recovered at Cumuto.
Guardian Media Investigations Desk has also not been able to independently confirm whether Emmanuel Cross is among the remains.
Cross said the family first learned of a body bearing Emmanuel’s name after seeing his name on a list of unclaimed bodies.
She said a friend went to view the body on her behalf.
“My friend went and viewed the body because I couldn’t stomach viewing that body,” Cross said.
She said the friend said the body was Emmanuel.
But when Cross later went to view the body before a post-mortem was done, she said the body shown to her was not her brother.
“It was not Emmanuel. It was an elderly man, an old man with a small head,” she said.
Cross said Emmanuel was in his 40s. The body she saw, she said, appeared to be that of a much older man.
“The thoughts that was going through my mind is that he could probably be alive still, or they probably mixed up the bodies,” she said.
Cross said police gave the family different accounts of what allegedly happened to Emmanuel. She said one version was that he was coming out of a car when he was struck. Another version, she said, was that he had been beaten, had difficulty breathing, went to hospital and later died.
“There’s plenty rumours going around with him,” she said.
She said police had previously told the family there was an investigation but questions remain.
“Nobody have no answers as if he really is there or if he’s not there. So I didn’t get no clarification,” Cross said.
She said Emmanuel had not been seen by the family for some time. Cross said he had previously stayed away because he was avoiding police in relation to child maintenance matters. But she said it was not normal for him to disappear completely.
“We lost hope of looking for him. We believe that he probably still alive out there,” she said.
But after police found the bodies at Cumuto, Cross said the family now wants to know whether he could be among them.
When Guardian Media Investigations Desk visited the funeral home said to be under probe, a co-operative society, last week, there appeared to be no activity at the compound. No one was seen going in or out, and the gate was locked.
Police are investigating the attempted unlawful disposal of 50 infants, four adult males and two adult females at the Cumuto Cemetery.
The case has raised wider questions about the handling of unclaimed bodies, morgue records, funeral arrangements and burial approvals.
Guardian Media Investigations Desk understands that a woman was among those assisting police with their probe. Several people were also questioned.
Efforts were made to speak with people said to be connected to the funeral home; however, workers remained tight-lipped.
Three people contacted said there was another side to the story, but said workers did not trust speaking to anyone.
The Sangre Grande Regional Corporation, which has responsibility for several public cemeteries in the area, has denied granting permission for the bodies to be buried at Cumuto.
For families like the Crosses, the issue is not only about the unlawful burial of bodies, but also about whether people who were already grieving or searching for missing relatives were denied answers because of failures or negligence in the system.
