The body of a Beetham man, who was last seen on Sat­ur­day, was found in the Sea Lots swamp yes­ter­day.

The de­com­pos­ing body of Ja­mal Bran­don Jes­sop had to be re­trieved by mem­bers of the Hunters Search and Res­cue Group, as it was en­tan­gled in the man­grove roots un­der the bridge near the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) pump at Clear Wa­ters, off the Beetham High­way.

The 25-year-old, who lived at East­ern Quar­ry in Laven­tille, was an out­pa­tient of the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal.

A fe­male rel­a­tive of Jes­sop last saw him around mid­day on Sat­ur­day, when he came to her house to have lunch be­fore leav­ing.

She re­port­ed him miss­ing around 9.30 am the next day, af­ter he failed to re­turn home.

The case spi­ralled down­wards af­ter the woman re­port­ed­ly re­ceived sev­er­al calls be­tween Sat­ur­day night and Sun­day morn­ing, in­form­ing her Jes­sop had been killed and his body dumped in the riv­er.

Of­fi­cers from the An­ti Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU), the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF), the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion, the Port-of-Spain Task Force, the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, and the High­way Pa­trol Unit, led by Sgt Bowen and ASP Cadette, car­ried out a search be­tween 3 pm and mid­night on Sun­day, but had to aban­don it due to sev­er­al rea­sons, in­clud­ing poor light­ing, dense fo­liage and in­ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty in some places.

The search re­sumed yes­ter­day morn­ing, fol­low­ing which Jes­sop’s body was spot­ted un­der the bridge.

Jes­sop’s rel­a­tive claimed she had been in­formed that he was al­leged­ly killed be­tween 2 am and 6 am on Sun­day at Phase 1, First Street, Beetham Gar­dens, fol­low­ing an al­ter­ca­tion with some­one. He had been shot and his body dumped in the riv­er.