Sep­tem­ber 2000. More than 20 years have passed since that date. But Ryan Cave’s mem­o­ries of his first few days at North East­ern Col­lege in San­gre Grande re­main as fresh as ever.

At 15 years old, and just like he is now, Cave was per­cep­tive and out­go­ing–a peo­ple’s per­son.

With­in the first week or so, he re­called strik­ing up a con­ver­sa­tion with a class­mate. The boy seemed shy­er than the oth­ers.

"He was not much for words. I re­call him say­ing, a cou­ple of times, that he was hun­gry, but at age 15, I mean how much com­pas­sion you could have when you hear some­thing like that? It’s on­ly now I can look back at these things and see how they may have come in­to play," Cave said.

As the weeks went by, how­ev­er, the class­mate start­ed as­so­ci­at­ing more with old­er stu­dents with rep­u­ta­tions as trou­ble­mak­ers.

Just how far his as­so­ci­a­tion with trou­ble would go wasn’t clear then.

It is now.

Cave’s class­mate’s name was Joel Bal­con–the man be­lieved to be the mas­ter­mind in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt, and who died while in po­lice cus­tody.

Bal­con, al­so known as De­von Charles, Joel Di­az and Joel Ot­t­ley, who was fac­ing up to 70 charges, was known to the po­lice as a sex­u­al, drug, firearms, rob­bery and lar­ce­ny of­fend­er, said to be re­spon­si­ble for rap­ing sev­er­al women who have come for­ward af­ter his death to re­late their or­deals.

Cave said, "I didn’t go to school with a mon­ster. This was a young man who would laugh and play and old talk, just like every­body else."

He re­lat­ed to Guardian Me­dia, "My sto­ry be­gins in Sep­tem­ber of the year 2000. I en­tered the gates of North East­ern Col­lege shy and un­cer­tain of what lies ahead. Mak­ing new friends is of­ten the path to so­cial com­fort and be­long­ing. I would of­ten sit and chat with a class­mate. He of­ten seemed shy and un­cer­tain him­self. It would take a few months for me to be­come aware of how trou­bled he was.

"He of­ten spoke of com­ing to school hav­ing not eat­en any break­fast, nev­er hav­ing any spend­ing mon­ey. It would not be long be­fore he grav­i­tat­ed to­wards the com­pa­ny of the old­er more way­ward boys of the school. Skip­ping class, fail­ing ex­ams, smok­ing cig­a­rettes be­hind the school all be­came the norm. Tried as much as she did, our from teacher could not reach him in a des­per­ate at­tempt to de­rail the train he was on. The cur­rent ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem was just not struc­tured to ad­dress the in­ter­ven­tion or re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of trou­bled, mis­lead youths.

"Even­tu­al­ly high school would end for some and the same sys­tem con­tin­ued with an­oth­er batch. Hav­ing left school with­out a prop­er ed­u­ca­tion it's ob­vi­ous the path my fel­low class­mate would con­tin­ue. Poor­ly paid jobs, the wrong as­so­ci­a­tion, and lack of guid­ance all seemed to seal his faith with a run-in with the law. Al­most 21 years lat­er, as po­lice un­cov­er more of the re­mains of the vic­tims span­ning more than a decade, Joel Bal­con now stands as prob­a­bly the most in­fa­mous se­r­i­al rapist and killer our coun­try has ever know."

Cave ex­pressed grief and sad­ness, not just for Bharatt, but for "all the vic­tims who fell prey to preda­tors" just like Bal­con. "We all failed them. We used to live by the prover­bial 'it takes a vil­lage to raise a chid', but those val­ues have long de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. It's time we all do our part to change a bro­ken sys­tem that still ex­ists to­day. A sys­tem where peo­ple like Joel can con­tin­ue to de­vel­op and per­pet­u­ate de­viant be­hav­iour that is not ad­dressed."

'His be­hav­iour got in­creas­ing­ly worse over two years at the school'

An­oth­er class­mate, Mariel­la Richard­son (name changed to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty) re­mem­bered Joel as more out­go­ing than Cave did.

She al­so re­mem­bered him as be­ing most­ly nor­mal but mis­chie­vous.

"Skip­ping school, go­ing out with the girls, get­ting caught. You know, do­ing things we con­sid­ered, as teenagers, as mis­chie­vous or prob­a­bly, as a teenag­er, some­thing we con­sid­ered to be so cool," she re­called.

"But look­ing back at it now, I can safe­ly say, he may have had a con­duct dis­or­der," Richard­son added.

Ac­cord­ing to Richard­son, Bal­con’s be­hav­iour got in­creas­ing­ly worse over his two years at the school.

The sus­pen­sions start­ed adding up, and so too did the let­ters sent from teach­ers to his par­ents.

Their head­teacher did her best, but she lacked the nec­es­sary sup­port sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly.

"He wasn’t the kind of stu­dent who when the teacher was talk­ing to him, he would roll his eyes with dis­re­spect all over them. He wasn’t that kind of per­son. He used to lis­ten and hang down his head and ac­knowl­edge his mis­takes. I saw Miss talk to him a few times and it al­most brought tears to his eyes, but it nev­er stuck," Cave said.

While it was un­clear whether Bal­con was in­volved in crim­i­nal­i­ty at school, it be­came clear not long af­ter they all left the San­gre Grande school.

Mean­while, in the North Oropouche Road com­mu­ni­ty where he lived as a young man, peo­ple in that area said grow­ing up he was qui­et and re­spectable. He lat­er moved out and went to Du­ran­ta Gar­dens, close to the North East­ern Set­tle­ment area. Hav­ing fall­en in­to bad com­pa­ny, he would re­turn to North Oropouche Road from time to time when he fell out with rel­a­tives af­ter po­lice would come look­ing for him caus­ing em­bar­rass­ment.

A male rel­a­tive had ap­pealed for him to get help "since he had a weak­ness for young girls," a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber said, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.