Sascha Wil­son

Two days af­ter 21-year-old Samuel “Sam­my” Pierre drowned while hunt­ing igua­nas with friends, Coast Guard divers yes­ter­day found his body near the Cipero Riv­er mouth.

Pierre’s moth­er Sharon De Breau, who was pray­ing that some­how her son sur­vived, is still thank­ful that his body was found.

“But I thank God they find his body. You know some­times peo­ple die and you nev­er find them and yuh just keep griev­ing, I griev­ing still but is God mak­ing me strong. Ah telling al­lyuh is God mak­ing me strong. I re­al hurt to know Samuel left home and was not able to re­turn back to me safe. Ah re­al hurt,” said De Breau at her Pleas­antville home. She said his body was found in a man­grove.

Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from the T&T Coast Guard, search­es were ini­ti­at­ed since they re­ceived the re­port on Fri­day and yes­ter­day an uniden­ti­fied body was found in the riv­er mouth.

They stat­ed that the body would be hand­ed over to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties for of­fi­cial iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, Pierre’s moth­er said she went down to the scene where she iden­ti­fied her son’s body.

“I telling them let me touch my son. I tell them I don’t care how dut­ty he look­ing, let me hug up my son, that is my child. But, they say I can­not cause how he was in the man­grove,” she lament­ed.

The moth­er is ques­tion­ing how her son drowned be­cause he could swim. “The po­lice have to do some more in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to that,” she said. Re­call­ing that Pierre loved to hunt igua­nas and would some­times keep them as pets and then re­lease them, she said he was a nice, lov­ing per­son and a hard work­er.

She said when his friends came to their home on Fri­day look­ing for Pierre she told them he was not home, but she be­lieves he heard them and lat­er met up with them.

“And he walk out (of the house) and he smil­ing. He went with a hap­py heart. I ent think­ing that is the last time I will see that boy.”

Pierre, a labour­er, went with his four teenage friends to hunt igua­nas in the area of the Cipero Riv­er off River­side Dri­ve, San Fer­nan­do on Fri­day.

They met a man who then took them to an area where they could find the igua­nas. The friends told po­lice that the man spot­ted an igua­na and swam across the riv­er.

Pierre, his friends said, was at­tempt­ing to swim across the riv­er when he got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties and drowned.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.