Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter her dis­ap­pear­ance in Oc­to­ber, rel­a­tives of 44-year-old Jamie Mo­hammed re­mained hope­ful that she would be found, but their hopes were dashed on Thurs­day when a de­com­pos­ing head­less body was found in the bush­es in Siparia.

While homi­cide de­tec­tives await foren­sic proof be­fore con­firm­ing her iden­ti­ty, Mo­hammed’s rel­a­tives be­lieve it is her based on the cloth­ing and shoes.

Mo­hammed’s 70-year-old com­mon-law hus­band told rel­a­tives he last saw her when he dropped her off at Rampys Bar in Siparia around 5 pm on Oc­to­ber 18 to lime with her friends.

She nev­er re­turned home.

On No­vem­ber 11, he re­port­ed her miss­ing to the po­lice and in­formed her rel­a­tives, who be­gan search­ing for her. The Val­lence Ramb­harat-led Hunters Search and Res­cue Team as­sist­ed them. 

How­ev­er, around 1.30 pm on Thurs­day, a 20-year-old hunter dis­cov­ered a body in some bush­es about 15 feet off Mur­ray Trace, Siparia. He ini­tial­ly thought it was a man­nequin, but as he got clos­er, there was a foul stench. The skull was found next to the body, which was clad in a leop­ard-coloured top and red­dish-coloured short pants that were pulled down to the left knee. One side of a pair of white and pink Un­der Ar­mour sneak­ers was on her foot, while the oth­er was found near­by. 

The body was found about half a mile away from the bar. Griev­ing rel­a­tives gath­ered at the Fyz­abad home of Mo­hammed’s 74-year-old moth­er yes­ter­day, try­ing to come to terms with the mur­der. 

Wip­ing away her tears, Mo­hammed’s moth­er, Lol­ly­ta Ma­haraj, was too dis­traught to speak to re­porters. 

Mo­hammed’s broth­er Ryan Chat­too said she was ac­cus­tomed to lim­ing at late hours. 

“I re­al­ly think she was tar­get­ed and that who­ev­er took her has done all this and I have to say evil be­cause if you saw what we saw, it was in­hu­mane and how could an­oth­er hu­man do that to an­oth­er hu­man? It’s not right,” he lament­ed.

He said the fam­i­ly was fur­ther trau­ma­tised by the graph­ic pho­tos and videos of the body that had been cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia. 

“It was harsh. Any­body see­ing it would maybe puke and I think that it should not have leaked that footage.” 

The fam­i­ly is ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic not to judge her lifestyle, as they said she loved go­ing out and lim­ing with friends. 

“She is a per­son, she loves to en­joy life. She is free-spir­it­ed. She just en­joyed her­self, en­joyed life,” said her broth­er.

Lament­ing the preva­lence of vi­o­lence against women, Chat­too ad­vised that they be vig­i­lant and re­spon­si­ble when go­ing out. 

“We have peo­ple that have no con­science and they prey on vic­tims as these women who are help­less and left alone and have maybe no one to de­fend them.”

Mo­hammed’s sis­ter-in-law, Everyln Chat­too, ap­pealed to res­i­dents and busi­ness peo­ple near the bar where she went miss­ing and the pub­lic, in gen­er­al, to come for­ward with any video footage or in­for­ma­tion to as­sist po­lice with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“How could no one not see? So I’m plead­ing, I’m ac­tu­al­ly beg­ging, some­body go back, look back at the cam­era. Look back at two o’clock. Look back on that day. Just look back, see if you can see my sis­ter-in-law. Where she walked and who she went with. I don’t want the ru­mours. I want you to see so we get clo­sure,” she plead­ed. 

She said, as a woman liv­ing in T&T, she was fear­ful for her life due to the high rate of mur­ders and shoot­ings. 

Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion 3 are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.