Horror as another Keyana, 6, snatched

Thank God! These were the words of relieved father Jasson Noel yesterday, after his six-year-old daughter Keyana Noel, who was abducted by a male relative on Tuesday from her Duncan Street, Port-of-Spain home, was returned to him safe and sound. Noel had gone into panic mode on Tuesday after his daughter went missing, especially in light of the recent spate of violent crimes which had been committed against children.

But thanks to the work of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad, Noel can now spend the Christmas season with his daughter in his arms. In an interview with members of the media at his home yesterday, a relieved Noel, 32, said: “I have no words other than thank God, thank God, thank God! 

“You see me here, I haven’t slept since Monday night. I was just a wreck as soon as I found out what happened. I couldn’t understand why this man would come into my house and take my child. She didn’t do him anything. I didn’t do him anything. So why resort to taking Keyana?” According to police reports, a man who had a relationship with the child’s mother that turned sour abducted Keyana because he was not being allowed to see his own child. 

After she was abducted, however, members of the AKS reportedly followed leads, entered into a period of negotiation with the 36-year-old suspect and eventually got him to agree to release Keyana. The child was picked up by members of the AKS from the suspect’s sister at the Aranguez Savannah, San Juan, around 9.30 am yesterday.

Cops get kudos
Yesterday, Noel profusely thanked the police for their swift action, adding they worked tirelessly until his daughter was returned. “As much as people would want to say negative things about the police — there are the one or two who does really act up and try to keep people down—but you see yesterday (Tuesday), them police work hard,” Noel said. 

“They were up all night with us. At all 3 am they out on the road, going Aranguez, Enterprise, Carapichaima. They worked hard. They didn’t stop until she was recovered. And for that I am eternally grateful to them.” Noel said the suspect wanted to use Keyana as a bargaining tool to gain access to his own daughter, Keyana’s sister. The child was snatched by the suspect, after he asked her if she wanted any snacks.

 At the time, Noel said he was across the road. He said, however, that everyone in the area knew his family so he was confident his daughter was safe. Noel said he was told that the suspect threatened people when asked what he was doing at the apartment. Police were still searching for the suspect up to late yesterday. This incident came weeks after the murder of another six-year-old girl named Keyana. 

That child, Keyana Cumberbtach, went missing from her Maloney home on November 25 and her badly decomposing body was found in a shipping barrel in her apartment three days later. The child, an autopsy report revealed, was bashed in the head so severely that her skull was cracked and while she was unconscious she was sexually assaulted. Dwayne Lewis, 28, appeared in court on Monday charged with Cumberbatch’s murder.