RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A 25-year-old Ma­yaro fish­er­man who went miss­ing last week, Re­nal­do 'Justin' Morales, has been found dead.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Morales' body was found by T&T Coast Guard of­fi­cers dur­ing a search for him on Sun­day, at about 11:22 am.

The body, which was brought to shore, was pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied by Morales’ moth­er by a tat­too of her name “Helana”, lo­cat­ed on the left side of the chest.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 11:22 am, Lieu­tenant Robin­son and a team of Coast Guard of­fi­cers were on pa­trol aboard CG 28 TTS Car­libay south of the Man­zanil­la area, when they saw a body float­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5.5 nau­ti­cal miles south­east of the Man­zanil­la Fish­ing Port.

The body was re­trieved by the of­fi­cers and tak­en to Port Ga­le­o­ta, Ga­le­o­ta Point, Guayagua­yare.

Re­spond­ing to the re­port were In­spec­tor Ramkissoon and a par­ty of of­fi­cers of the Ma­yaro CID and Task­force, as well as a Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer.

The Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer ex­am­ined the body and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­ter, St James for an au­top­sy to de­ter­mine the ac­tu­al cause of death.

Re­nal­do 'Justin' Morales, of Mal­oney Road, Ma­yaro, re­port­ed­ly left the Guayagua­yare Fish­ing Port last Wednes­day at around 4 pm or 5 pm to go fish­ing.  He was ex­pect­ed to re­turn the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

Morales re­port­ed­ly was last seen by some fish­er­men on the morn­ing of Thurs­day 24 March 2022.  At the time, he was in a 28-foot pirogue named 'Right­eous', pulling in a fish­ing net.

He was nev­er seen af­ter­ward, and a search was sub­se­quent­ly launched by the Coast Guard and his fel­low fish­er­men.

He was even­tu­al­ly re­cov­ered by the Coast Guard on Sun­day morn­ing, at about 11:22.