Andrea Bharatt, 20
After his wife died, Randolph Bharatt wasn’t doing so well. Drinking too much, not sleeping and sinking into depression, Bharatt thought it best his only child go and live with her aunts.
“I begged she to go,” he says. “She was 15. That child she said: ‘I ain’t leaving.’ My wife had been six years ill, so it had been hard, but Andrea used that as motivation.
“It was me had to stop being the delinquent. My own mother died when I was nine and I didn’t know parenting. But I went into Andrea’s school and they said: ‘Go home, there is nothing wrong with this one.’ She was getting trophies and certificates.”
Andrea’s room in the bright, one-storey house in Arima, Trinidad, is full of her treasures: a yellow toy truck she adored as a toddler, school certificates and her framed BSc degree from the University of the West Indies.
On one wall, Bharatt has hung a large poster that was used at one of the vigils for Andrea and dozens of other missing or murdered young women in the small Caribbean twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
Andrea was abducted, aged 20, after catching a taxi home from Arima magistrates court where she was a clerk, on 29 January 2021. The driver, Joel Balcon, then 36, had more than 70 outstanding criminal charges against him, from rape to robbery. He had connections to at least one other missing woman, but was out on the streets as a result of, depending whose opinion you get in Trinidad, inefficiency or blatant corruption in the justice system.
As it got dark, her dad repeatedly rang her phone. Eventually, a man answered and threatened to send him the ear of “your pretty daughter”.
“I knew that was it,” said Bharatt. “The way that fella sounded. I knew.”
Balcon is alleged to have involved two friends in the rape and murder of Andrea. Her body was found eight days after she disappeared, dumped in a ravine at Aripo Heights.
“Andrea was little piece,” said Bharatt, 56. “Every morning she would come for a hug and put her head under my armpit. They were three big men. What they did to my child, how could a normal thinking person … ” He tails off, picking up a large switchblade and turning it over.
“I gave she this knife, but because the court where she worked take it off her, she left it at home. She didn’t feel afraid. You never think these things will reach your door
“Was I worried about her? All the time. Today Trinidad is stinking. Sorry to say. There are demons out there. It used to be very, very rare you heard somebody killed, it would be big news.”
Bharatt has abandoned counselling after the therapist wept copiously at his story, but lives in fear of the crime that riddles his town. His TV displays views from his home CCTV system.
Balcon and his alleged accomplice Andrew Morris, both died of “blunt force” injuries apparently suffered in police custody during the search for Andrea. A third man, Negus George, is awaiting trial. A Police Complaints Authority investigation was launched into the alleged beatings of the men but Bharatt is no longer interested in any of this.
“None of this is justice. God will do that.
“We need change. Trinidad has so much, everybody should be comfortable and happy without any problems. We need to fix it.”
On 29 January 2022, the body of 21-year-old Keithisha Cudjoe was also found in Aripo canyon. She had been missing for five days. Human remains in the ravine discovered in 2021 have not been identified. In April 2022, another, as yet unidentified woman’s body wrapped in plastic was found in a ravine 20 miles away. In early April 2023, the body of Aneesa Vicky Ali, 33, who lived close to Aripo was found dumped in woodland. No charges have been brought.
In April this year, three women died in separate shootings in Arima. Elizabeth Watson, 36, and Kernella Saunders, 35, were both killed by stray bullets fired into houses and Candace Grifffith, 41, at a birthday party. None were the intended victims.
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Ashanti Riley, 18
Candice Riley went to the vigil for Andrea Bharatt two months after her own daughter died.
“It was like losing Ashanti all over again,” Riley says.
The 29 November 2020 was a Sunday. There was a birthday party at a cousin’s house and 18-year-old Ashanti Riley walked the two minutes from home to the corner of Sunshine Avenue in San Juan to catch a taxi. Most Trinidadian housing areas are not on bus routes, so people rely on private hire, “PH”, taxis to get about. PH taxis are unlicensed and unpoliced. Ashanti wasn’t often out on her own, but her older sister, Aaliyah, was at a sleepover and Candice was tired after a day of housework and cooking.
She was missed very quickly. “Ashanti is not a person to let her phone get out of charge. She carried her charger. When her phone was going to voicemail I started to worry,” says Riley.
“I think I knew then, but we wanted to be positive. We went to the police station and they were saying: ‘She’s a teenager. She is going by some man.’ They didn’t take me seriously. To me, the police didn’t do much. They didn’t do much at all. We went to the lady who has a shop on the corner with a camera [CCTV] to see Ashanti got in the PH. We putting out social media. We did leaflets with numbers on but we just had men sending us pictures of their private parts, sexual calls.
“From the Tuesday, police started questioning the taxi driver. We had just moved to the area and school was online for Covid, so neighbours didn’t know I had young girls at home. So they didn’t warn us about the character of the taxi driver.
“After, I had people come to my door to say: ‘That man raped my daughter.’ One father say that when his face [was shown] on TV his daughter say: ‘Daddy, that is the man who raped me.’ Before, she had not told. She didn’t want the shame.
“What chance do our girls have? It’s normal to get a taxi.
“I’m very angry. They say time will ease, but it doesn’t ease. I want to know why. Why he did what he did.”
There is no trial date set for Luciano Quash, 34, the man accused of murdering Ashanti.
“The justice system doesn’t give justice,” says Riley. “The waiting period is just so long to see him in a court. How long can it take? Five years? Ten years?
“I don’t know what drives these men, they see a young woman and they are so aggressive outside. In my time, it was so different, men were different. Men would soot [catcall] you. If you said no they would turn to the next girl. Now, they take it out on you, they are driven to destroy the young woman’s self-esteem or take what they want. It’s hard outside.
“So many girls going missing. So many. Now, I celebrate my daughter’s birthday in a graveyard. You bring children into this life to bury you, not to bury them.”
Luciano Quash has since been charged with two further counts of rape against minors.
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Sharday Emmanuel, 20
The Emmanuels are a close family. Junior and Marilyn Emmanuel believe they know who killed Sharday, their daughter, who vanished in June 2018, just before her 21st birthday. No one has been charged. They now believe she had been in an abusive relationship. The day she disappeared, she left a voicemail on her friend’s phone telling her she was going first to the mall and then on to meet her boyfriend to finish with him.
“On CCTV, she left the mall but that was the last. We sat out on the front porch waiting and waiting, till dark. The police didn’t take us seriously. One officer said leave her for a few days and when she comes home bring her in and we will talk to her,” says her father.
“After, strangers were coming to me who knew [her boyfriend], telling me stories, bad things about him. After, after, after,” says Junior.
In 2019, Junior spotted a newspaper report that a decomposed body had been found in a deserted oil field road near the southern town of Santa Flora. He begged police to let him view the remains and believes he recognised the tie-dye fabric of Sharday’s long skirt. But four years on, the Emmanuels are still waiting.
“I saw the material and I took out my phone and showed the officers a photo of Sharday in that skirt. They look at one another. They say they need DNA. They took DNA. But there are hundreds of cases in front of Sharday,” he says. “Even so, I have no faith in the lab in Trinidad, they refuse to do proper DNA testing. I would pay to send this to the US, but they refuse even to let us do it ourselves. To them she is still a missing person, not a homicide.
“I know my daughter is in a freezer at a forensics lab,” he says.
Marilyn accepts her daughter is dead. “I know she is not alive. She is not here – but not knowing where, we need to know,” she says. “He get away scot free for that. We have to face that each day. I’m getting stronger, but for a long time I could nah sleep, I could nah function. Counselling and therapy have helped me get things out a little.
“We deal with it in our own way. In Trinidad, if you don’t have a gun you can get a gun, but Sharday would be furious that anyone would do something like that over she.
“Sharday was quiet and reserved, a very kind person. She started working in a private nursing home and she liked it. She would come home and tell you all about her patients. I love to cook and she love her belly, she could be asleep and smell food and wake up hungry.” She smiles, briefly.
Another murder victim also discovered in the Santa Flores oilfields, in December 2017, was confirmed after five months by forensic services to be Anita Mohammed, a mother of two.
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Teri Gomez, 17
When Teri Gomez, 17, disappeared in January 2008, she left behind her daughter, Jada, whose father was Joel Balcon.
In 2021, Balcon allegedly died of a beating in police custody while being questioned about Andrea Bharatt’s murder.
Toni Walker believes Balcon killed Teri, her younger sister, two months before he was due in court over an attack that had put Teri in hospital.
“I never liked him,” says Walker. “She met him at school. He was far older than her but sharks prey on weaker households, and we had no father.
“He used to beat her. For some women like my sister there is that wanting to be loved and afraid to be alone. That is a bad, dangerous thing,” says Walker. “When Teri got she belly my mother cried, it was the same age she got pregnant, so she blamed herself.
“In Trinidad, people use you being a single mother to bash you. Teri couldn’t go to school no more. She was in a lower level school so they don’t care. Girl gets pregnant, she has to leave.”
Teri had dropped Jada off with Balcon’s relatives for a visit and told her mother she was going out to buy fried chicken. She never came back.
“When mummy went to report her missing they jump to conclusions, they say she’s gone by a man,” says Walker. “Nobody looked at the cameras at KFC. I see on TV the passion people have for their jobs in police. But that effort don’t happen for people who live in Trinidad.
“I never thought she dead. I had hope until Andrea. That rooted up all the other stories and they found other bones in his dumping ground. We gave the police DNA but we’ve heard nothing. The fuss die down and nobody cares again.
“It’s a for ever pain, an unfathomable pain. Every time I see another girl go missing, it depletes me. I would be glad to bury my sister, just to lay her to rest.
“Teri was a real nice person who people could take advantage of. Anything she had, she would give you. I remember my friend’s father had no stove. Teri used her first pay and bought him one. I couldn’t believe that.
“We have to guard Trinidadian children from these sharks out there. We have to break generational curses of violence and better protect our girls and our boys.”
Between 2007 and 2017, Joel Balcon was charged with more than 70 crimes, including counts of rape, kidnapping, false imprisonment, larceny, and robbery with aggravation.
He was granted bail in every instance, and discharged in more than 30 cases when police and witnesses failed to show up in court.
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Shannon Banfield, 20
Bank clerk Shannon Banfield, 20, loved art and her cat and macaw. After her murder, her grandmother rehomed the parrot, no one could bear it calling for “Shannon” all day long.
She also played the piano and had an active role in her church in the Trinidadian capital, Port of Spain. “She took part in everything at school – the teachers loved her,” says Sherry Ann Lopez, Shannon’s mother.
“Something bad happening was not even a thought when I was Shannon’s age. Now, you can’t keep up with how many are missing. We were free and comfortable and there was not even a thought about staying safe. For Shannon, well that same year there had been a lot of kidnappings and abductions and I had started to get scared about where she was going, where she was being picked up,” says Lopez. “She found it overprotective but she understood.
“I married at 18, had her at 19. My husband emigrated and didn’t look back, so we were close.”
“On the Sunday, she came home from church and laid down on the bed. Her shoes were covered in mud, so I said ‘throw them in the bin’. The next day, she was going to buy new ones after work. On the Monday, I had dropped her to the bank. She got out and I said: ‘I love you my baby.’ That was the last time I saw her.
“She had called me to say she’d bought the shoes and wanted to go to this store to buy a swizzle stick she had seen to beat eggs. The CCTV shows her going in but not coming out.”
The investigation into Shannon’s disappearance was slow, says Lopez. Police presumed she had gone off with a man. The family searched the streets and hospitals before a body was found in a storage unit inside the shop three days later, on 8 December 2016.
Shannon had been raped and strangled.
“I still haven’t faced what actually happened – she was on CCTV going in, she was looking for this item and she went into the storeroom, that’s all I know.
“There is no grieving with homicide, I just sat on my bed rocking, I wanted to die. I stopped praying; when the pastor came by I nearly cussed him. My son was just 12 but he was my comfort.”
Lopez says she herself fell victim to violence when her policeman boyfriend beat her so badly she ended up in hospital weeks after her daughter’s death.
In December 2016, Dale Seecharan, a shop employee, was charged with Shannon’s murder, but no trial date has been set. The policeman who allegedly beat Lopez has not been charged.
On 8 May 2023, the body of Gabrielle Raphael, 24, was found dumped in the park close to Shannon’s former place of work in Port of Spain. Recently, murdered women in the small city of 37,000 people include Camille Hernandez, found in a car park in 2020. An unidentified woman’s body was found in June 2021 and Raffina Khan, 61, was stabbed in 2022.
