The mother of a 14-year-old girl from Rio Claro, who ran away from home last week, is pleading with her to return home to attend her murdered father’s funeral.
Rehana Singh, the mother of Shivani Persad, made the emotional plea at the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday after an autopsy was done on her husband’s body.
Vishnu Persad was shot dead at the family’s home at Mahabalsingh Trace, Navet Village, Rio Claro, on Saturday.
“I am not sure if she even knows what happened. I just want her to see him before he goes and for her to come home because she and her sisters are all I have now,” Singh said.
The 39-year-old mother of three said her daughter, a student of the Rio Claro East Secondary School, went missing after leaving home to go to school last Wednesday. She has two other daughters aged 11 and nine.
Singh said that after the teenager did not return home, she and her husband went in search of her in Mayaro after they got information that she left school in the company of a 25-year-old man, who had worked with her father in the past.
Shortly after she disappeared, Shivani’s profile name on social media site Facebook was changed to match the man’s surname and a photograph of the two embracing was posted.
“We just want him to bring her back home because we not concerned about him only that she come back home now,” Singh said.
The mother said that the man had approached the family in the past seeking permission to begin a relationship with the teenager but they refused.
“He talked to me and asked to be her friend but I told him that she is only 14 and needs to concentrate on her education and not boys. I also told him that she was underage and he was too old for her,” Singh said.
Singh said she and her husband reported the incident to the police, but decided to continue searching on their own after investigators had no success in locating the teen or the man by Friday night.
Singh said that 30 minutes after they returned home following an unsuccessful search at the home of the man’s parents on Saturday, her husband was murdered.
“I left him in the hammock upstairs and went to look after the other children when I heard the gunshot,” Singh said.
She said she did not see her husband’s attacker when she rushed outside to his assistance.
Asked if she could think of a reason for her husband’s murder, Singh said she believed it was connected to her daughter’s disappearance.
“We never had a problem with anybody,” Singh said.
Contacted yesterday homicide detectives said they were investigating the theory that the crime was linked to the missing girl but refused to confirm whether the man had been deemed a suspect.
Investigators said they did not want to reveal too many details as their investigation was at a sensitive stage.
T&T Guardian understands that police received reports that the man and the teen were spotted in Mayaro. Up to late yesterday neither was found.