Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Con­sta­ble Rus­sel Be­dasse has ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over po­lice han­dling of his moth­er’s death, claim­ing she was mur­dered, though homi­cide de­tec­tives have not yet been in­volved.

Shelawai­htie “Meera” Be­dasse, 57, of Ce­dros, was re­port­ed miss­ing on Tues­day. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, around 6 am, she was found hang­ing from a tree near Clifton Hill beach in Point Fortin. Po­lice seized an un­opened bot­tle of poi­son la­belled “Herbinate” and bro­ken tablet pack­ets at the scene.

Be­dasse crit­i­cised au­thor­i­ties for treat­ing the death as a sus­pect­ed sui­cide and for their de­layed re­sponse af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing. He last spoke with his moth­er around 8 am on Tues­day when she pro­vid­ed a phone num­ber he need­ed. Lat­er that day, calls to her went unan­swered, prompt­ing him to re­port her miss­ing to Ce­dros Po­lice.

He said he con­duct­ed his own in­quiries, re­view­ing footage and speak­ing with wit­ness­es, ul­ti­mate­ly pro­vid­ing po­lice with a name, ad­dress, and ve­hi­cle num­ber of a per­son who had picked up his moth­er near her work­place at Bet­ter Deal Su­per­mar­ket. The in­di­vid­ual was de­tained, ques­tioned, and re­leased af­ter claim­ing to have dropped her at the beach.

An au­top­sy is sched­uled for to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain. Be­dasse said that as of yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, no se­nior of­fi­cer had con­tact­ed him.

Ce­dros po­lice con­tin­ue to in­ves­ti­gate.