RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

This Christ­mas sea­son has be­come one of an­guish for rel­a­tives of 20-year-old Tyrese Pe­ters and his 50-year-old cousin Ja­son Rolle, who have both been miss­ing since No­vem­ber 27.

Wor­ried rel­a­tives are now call­ing on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­is­ter Gue­var­ro to give the case the same pri­or­i­ty as the re­cent dou­ble kid­nap­ping of a hus­band and wife at Monos Is­land.

Pe­ters, a se­cu­ri­ty guard as­signed to the For­est Park land­fill, and Rolle, a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer at the Ser­vol Life Cen­tre, both of Hill­top Dri­ve, Clax­ton Bay, left Rolle’s home around 7 pm that night in his grey Nis­san Almera.

CCTV footage showed the men en­ter­ing the ve­hi­cle with a woman who sat in the back seat. No footage has been found show­ing where they went af­ter­wards.

Their dis­ap­pear­ance comes less than two weeks be­fore the high-pro­file kid­nap­ping of a cou­ple, Der­rick Tardieu and his wife Clara­belle, at Monos Is­land.

Rel­a­tives of Pe­ters and Rolle com­plained their case has not re­ceived as much at­ten­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Faith George, Rolle’s sis­ter, said her broth­er was not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and spent most of his time work­ing and hunt­ing.

“My broth­er is a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer. He goes to work and comes back. He works at Ser­vol Life Cen­tre in For­res Park, and he has been em­ployed there for the past 11 years,” she said. “He is al­so a hunter. This is the time he would make his ex­tra mon­ey for Christ­mas. I don’t know what’s go­ing on at all.”

George said sur­veil­lance footage con­firmed that Rolle left home with Pe­ters and a young woman, but she re­ject­ed spec­u­la­tion that Rolle was tar­get­ed.

“I don’t know what every­body is say­ing. Ask any­body around him. My broth­er is a fel­low who doesn’t mix with plen­ty of peo­ple. Morn­ing, good evening, good af­ter­noon — that is him.”

Mean­while, Pe­ters’ fa­ther, Troy Joseph, ac­cused the po­lice of not treat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance as an emer­gency.

“No­body look­ing for him — it’s just me,” Joseph said. “Every time po­lice call, they ask­ing me what I hear. They not sup­posed to be ask­ing me that. They’re sup­posed to be in­ves­ti­gat­ing.”

Joseph claimed he warned his son re­peat­ed­ly to dis­tance him­self from Rolle be­cause Rolle “had a tar­get on his back.”

“I tell my son stay away from that boy. He is a mov­ing tar­get,” Joseph said. “My son nev­er do no crime. He just left home that day and gone for a ride and nev­er came back.”

He said Hunters Search and Res­cue teams have joined the fam­i­ly to look through forests and back­roads, in­clud­ing ar­eas in Princes Town and at the dump.

“I want my son home,” he said. “If he’s alive, who­ev­er has him, bring him back. He in­no­cent. Tyrese is an in­no­cent boy.”

He called on the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to treat the case with ur­gency.

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact the po­lice or call Joseph at 378-6693.