RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA | Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

British cit­i­zen Kelvin Ad­sett says he is as­ton­ished that the army, po­lice and oth­er arms of law en­force­ment have not joined to­geth­er to find his miss­ing wife, Christi­na Ad­sett, who dis­ap­peared from her Pe­nal home on Sep­tem­ber 11.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Kelvin said he was now of­fer­ing a $20,000 re­ward to any­one who has in­for­ma­tion about his wife's where­abouts.

"I am a pen­sion­er. I am 71 years old. This is all I can af­ford," Kelvin said with a sense of de­spair, high­light­ing the emo­tion­al toll this or­deal has tak­en on him.

De­scrib­ing the on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion as "an ab­solute night­mare," Kelvin raised ques­tions about the ab­sence of a ded­i­cat­ed po­lice li­ai­son with his fam­i­ly, as he would ex­pect in the Unit­ed King­dom.

"We do not know what is hap­pen­ing. The hunters have searched all over and are ac­tu­al­ly do­ing what the po­lice are sup­posed to be do­ing," he added.

He ex­plained that the on­ly politi­cian who con­tact­ed him was Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, who promised to as­sist in what­ev­er way pos­si­ble.

How­ev­er, as the days turn in­to weeks, Kelvin said he is ap­palled by the lack of con­cern from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en that his wife is a British cit­i­zen.

He ex­plained that In­ter­pol and the British Em­bassy have been con­tact­ed about his wife's mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ance and are li­ais­ing with lo­cal po­lice, who ap­pear to have made no head­way in­to the case.

Kelvin said the Pe­nal po­lice have not up­dat­ed him on the case, and an in­for­mant who gave po­lice cer­tain in­for­ma­tion has since been re­leased.

Kelvin said it was heart­break­ing not know­ing his wife's where­abouts.

He re­called how Christi­na loved Trinidad and had con­tributed to the up­lift­ment of her com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try.

"So why now, when she is in trou­ble, no­body is con­cerned? Is this how el­der­ly peo­ple are treat­ed here?" he asked.

Kelvin said they had been mar­ried for 30 years and were plan­ning to re­tire in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Christi­na was last seen clean­ing the front of her prop­er­ty, which housed her res­i­dence and her busi­ness, Christi­na's Foot Spa. She was wear­ing brown pants and a yel­low T-shirt at the time of her dis­ap­pear­ance.

Two days lat­er, the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit (SIU) con­tact­ed the Pe­nal po­lice to ver­i­fy in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ing that Ad­sett had been kid­napped and mur­dered.

Up­on vis­it­ing her home, the po­lice found the back door open, but there were no vis­i­ble signs of forced en­try. Christi­na's cell phone and car keys were dis­cov­ered in­side the house, a de­par­ture from her usu­al rou­tine of nev­er leav­ing with­out these items.

Christi­na's daugh­ter, Kel­ly Ad­sett, who al­so re­sides in the UK, ex­pressed deep con­cern for her moth­er's well-be­ing and plead­ed for a more co­or­di­nat­ed and in­ten­sive ef­fort to lo­cate her moth­er.