Kevon Felmine

Reel­ing from the trag­ic death of her on­ly daugh­ter Na­dia Simms, Nafeesa Simms yes­ter­day warned young cit­i­zens that they should scru­ti­nise every­one of­fer­ing help or try­ing to be­friend them.

Speak­ing at her Rochard Road, Pe­nal home yes­ter­day, Nafeesa said there were preda­tors out there seek­ing to prey up­on un­sus­pect­ing peo­ple who gen­uine­ly need help.

Simms, who would have cel­e­brat­ed her 25th birth­day next Tues­day was found dead on Wednes­day. Hunters found her body buried in a shal­low grave off a Petrotrin Field Road, San­ta Flo­ra.

She had gone to meet a 31-year-old San­ta Flo­ra man last Sat­ur­day, who had promised to help her with a work at a WASA fa­cil­i­ty in San­ta Flo­ra.

An au­top­sy by pathol­o­gist Dr Es­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris, at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, yes­ter­day was in­con­clu­sive pend­ing the re­sults of tox­i­col­o­gy re­sults, po­lice said.

Hav­ing been un­em­ployed for sev­er­al months last year and be­ing laid off from the Gi­ant Pan­da Restau­rant and Bar along the Pe­nal Rock Road, Pe­nal two weeks ago, Simms was des­per­ate for a new job.

It was that des­per­a­tion that the sus­pect used to lure her to an area near his San­ta Flo­ra home where it was be­lieved he killed her. Work­ers at the Gi­ant Pan­da Restau­rant and Bar said the sus­pect was a reg­u­lar cus­tomer at the restau­rant and he drank a lot of al­co­hol.

Fol­low­ing Simms dis­missal, Nafeesa said the sus­pect called her phone last week, ask­ing why she was not at work.

It was then he told her that he worked WASA and could get her a job. How­ev­er, it was lat­er learned that the sus­pect sold yams for a liv­ing.

"When I asked her what he did, she did not know. Now we know he sells yams. Nor­mal­ly I don't ask my daugh­ter about her phone calls but for some rea­son on that day, when I heard her talk­ing to that per­son, I asked who was that. She was not hes­i­tant in telling who was that. She said "(name called), he comes by the restau­rant and he is work­ing WASA.' He told her he will help her get a job. I cau­tioned her about these pranksters who would use every trick in the book to get at her," Nafeesa said.

Simms left her home around 7.30 am Sat­ur­day to meet the sus­pect and was not been seen or heard from by her fam­i­ly again. Video footage from the Gi­ant Pan­da Restau­rant and Bar showed that she and the sus­pect were at the restau­rant un­til 1 pm.

The sus­pect's rel­a­tives said that Simms was brought to their home where she ate a piece of mac­a­roni pie.

Res­i­dents re­called see­ing the sus­pect and Simms walk­ing in the street, but did not see them walk back out. For four days Pe­nal po­lice and rel­a­tives searched Rochard Road, at the sus­pect's rel­a­tives home, and the area around the sus­pect's house.

The 31-year-old sus­pect re­mained in po­lice cus­tody last night and was ex­pect­ed to be in­ter­viewed by de­tec­tives of the Homi­cide Bu­reau.