RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As po­lice con­tin­ue the search for Samuel Mon­tano and his girl­friend, Za­hee­da Mo­hammed, rel­a­tives say their hopes of find­ing the pair alive are fad­ing, and they are now spec­u­lat­ing that Mon­tano’s re­cent drug re­lapse may have played a part in their dis­ap­pear­ance.

A source said three years ago, Mon­tano quit us­ing co­caine af­ter meet­ing Mo­hammed. Ear­li­er this year, dur­ing Car­ni­val and around his birth­day in March, he re­lapsed and be­gan us­ing drugs again.

Mo­hammed’s two chil­dren—a 13-year-old daugh­ter and an 18-year-old son—are both dis­traught over her dis­ap­pear­ance.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the rel­a­tive said no bod­ies have been re­cov­ered, but po­lice and vil­lagers be­lieve the tide could have car­ried them far from shore.

“The blood stains in the house showed some­thing vi­o­lent hap­pened,” the rel­a­tive said. “We don’t know if they killed them and dis­posed of their bod­ies far out at sea, or if some­one had knowl­edge of how the tides are. We just don’t know.”

She re­called speak­ing to Mon­tano on the morn­ing he van­ished last Thurs­day.

“He was nor­mal, just how Sam used to be. He came up in his box­ers, big-mouthed, say­ing he want­ed cof­fee, just how he used to be.”

She said Mon­tano and Mo­hammed were last seen at the house, ready to take a bath. That night, Mo­hammed’s son mes­saged ask­ing for his moth­er to call him, but calls to her phone went unan­swered.

The next morn­ing, a search of the near­by area was made. Po­lice were called af­ter blood was dis­cov­ered in the house.

The rel­a­tive said Mon­tano lived along the wa­ter­front and worked oc­ca­sion­al­ly with fish­er­men.

Since the dis­ap­pear­ance, po­lice and search and res­cue teams have been do­ing shore­line pa­trols, door-to-door in­ter­views with res­i­dents, and off­shore pa­trols in the sur­round­ing wa­ters.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors processed the house and col­lect­ed sam­ples of the blood found on the floors and walls. Of­fi­cers searched for pos­si­ble weapons, ex­am­ined items in the home, and took state­ments from neigh­bours.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have been re­view­ing CCTV footage from near­by prop­er­ties and busi­ness­es to trace the cou­ple’s last known move­ments. Vil­lagers have as­sist­ed in comb­ing the coast­line, man­groves, and fish­ing sheds in the area.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said they had not con­firmed whether the case was a homi­cide. For now, in­ves­ti­ga­tors are treat­ing it as a miss­ing per­sons case while they await fur­ther ev­i­dence.