Charles Kong Soo

Tri­cia Williams, 41, just wants one thing for Christ­mas. To have her miss­ing son come back to her alive and well.

When most peo­ple were cel­e­brat­ing Di­vali, the fes­ti­val of lights, on Oc­to­ber 29, the moth­er of two was in the dark­ness of un­cer­tain­ty whether her first-born son, Mau­rice, who has been miss­ing since Sep­tem­ber 16, is still liv­ing or not.

"On All Saints' and All Souls' Day, how am I sup­posed to feel when every­one was light­ing a can­dle for their loved ones?" Williams asked.

"Light­ing a can­dle was say­ing Mau­rice is dead, so I didn't. When peo­ple and fam­i­ly mem­bers go miss­ing and nev­er re­turn it's hard­er to live with than peo­ple that die and bury.

"It's on­ly wicked peo­ple will do some­thing like that, make a moth­er, fa­ther, hus­band, wife, and chil­dren go through that pain every sin­gle day."

With tears welling up in her eyes, Williams said, "He would al­ways hug and kiss me when I go to vis­it him at his place. His sneak­ers, slip­pers, and clothes are by me which con­stant­ly re­mind me of him. For Christ­mas Mau­rice would nor­mal­ly come by me in Ari­ma and spend the day with me. I want him back now."

Williams said she had fam­i­ly mem­bers who had passed, she felt the pain, sor­row and cried for them. The an­guished woman said, how­ev­er, when a moth­er had a child that was part of her, she would al­ways have pain in her bel­ly.

Mau­rice Williams, 23, was last seen on Sep­tem­ber 16. He left his home at Mendez Dri­ve in Champs Fleurs, around 11 pm to col­lect the day's sales at his car wash in Crys­tal Dri­ve, Mor­vant, us­ing his friend's Toy­ota Axio car which was lat­er found in Freeport.

When he left the house he was seen wear­ing a white vest and blue jeans and had a large gold chain around his neck.

Mau­rice made a phone call to col­lect a sum of mon­ey at an­oth­er busi­ness place but he nev­er ar­rived there. Calls to his cell phone went unan­swered. Wor­ried rel­a­tives made re­ports about his dis­ap­pear­ance to the Mor­vant and St Joseph po­lice sta­tions.

Williams said she was crest­fall­en when a man's body was found in Freeport on Sep­tem­ber 29 and her rel­a­tives feared that it was her son.

They were re­lieved to dis­cov­er that the body at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, was not Mau­rice's.

CCTV footage of car

Mau­rice was dri­ving

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian at its St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, of­fices on Wednes­day, Williams said she called the T&T Po­lice An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU) on Sep­tem­ber 24 and an of­fi­cer in­formed her that there was CCTV cam­era footage from the Mor­vant Junc­tion show­ing the car Mau­rice was dri­ving at 2 am.

She said the car's glass was heav­i­ly tint­ed; the po­lice had sent the footage to "clean up" but they have not got­ten it back as yet. Williams said that would help a lot but she did not know if the po­lice could do that.

The dis­traught moth­er said she was told by the po­lice that they had a back­log of oth­er footage and cas­es of miss­ing peo­ple.

Williams said there was the per­cep­tion that on­ly Ria Sookdeo was be­ing high­light­ed.

She said while all life was sa­cred, there were oth­er miss­ing peo­ple too; her son was miss­ing be­fore Sookdeo but no­body knows about Mau­rice.

Williams said the car Mau­rice was dri­ving was found in a re­mote agri­cul­tur­al area in Freeport days lat­er and it was scrapped. A farmer had made a re­port to the Freeport po­lice but no one came right away.

She said peo­ple did not know that her son took out a loan for his car which was parked by her be­cause it need­ed re­pairs and still had four years of car pay­ments to make.

Williams said the car wash busi­ness was passed on to Mau­rice and his younger broth­er by their fa­ther.

'He worked in a rough area'

She said her son's cell­phone was switched off since Sep­tem­ber 17 and there were no leads or calls de­mand­ing a ran­som.

With the pain and agony show­ing in her face and voice, Williams said with the sup­port of friends and rel­a­tives they dis­trib­uted fly­ers in the Ch­agua­nas area and searched for her miss­ing son from Chick­land, Freeport, Carlsen Field to Clax­ton Bay, but to no avail.

When asked if Mau­rice had any ri­vals or en­e­mies, if he hung out with the wrong crowd, gam­bled or had any debts she said he did not even have any mis­de­meanours, but it was a "rough" area where he worked.

She said she did not know what was the sit­u­a­tion, if he had a falling out or prob­lem with any­one or what caused him to go miss­ing, but it was very hard for her that with each pass­ing day she did not know where he was or what he was do­ing.

Grief strick­en, she said she tried not to think what could be go­ing on with him or what he was fac­ing.

Williams said since her son's dis­ap­pear­ance she could not sleep prop­er­ly. She tried to eat a lit­tle bit to keep her strength up be­cause if she gets sick she would be of no use in find­ing him, but the or­deal was tak­ing a toll on her.

The tears be­gan to flow freely as Williams made an im­pas­sioned plea: "I still be­lieve that Mau­rice is still alive in my heart. I just want who­ev­er kid­napped him to feel sor­ry for him, set him free and let him come back to me."

Williams said an AKU of­fi­cer had rec­om­mend­ed that she speak to a coun­sel­lor or join a sup­port group, but she has not yet done so be­cause she want­ed to fo­cus more on search­ing for her son.

Williams said she has not gone back to her nurs­ing job since she re­ceived the news of Mau­rice's dis­ap­pear­ance.

She said she would need to talk to some­body even­tu­al­ly or else she "might go mad."

When the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit on Thurs­day, an of­fi­cer said there were no se­nior of­fi­cers present to talk, while an in­spec­tor said to call back as they were in a meet­ing. Ellen Lewis, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer of the Po­lice Ser­vice, said there was no ma­jor head­way in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

MORE IN­FO

Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the where­abouts of Mau­rice Williams can con­tact any po­lice sta­tion, TTPS An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit at 623-6793, 555, 999, or rel­a­tives at 367-0573, 310-1332 or 625-6351.