Tobago Correspondent
The mother of Golconda resident Stacy Samaroo, whose body was found floating in the sea in Hope, Tobago, on Tuesday, said her daughter was unhappy on the island.
Lystra Samaroo, also known as Vashti, said her daughter travelled to Tobago in January to see an eye specialist. However, she decided to remain there until her next appointment in April while searching for employment. Her mother said the job search was not going as planned.
“She was telling me she ain’t feel she getting work across there, things ain’t looking too nice. I say come back, come back Trinidad, what you doing there. She always stay and come back, but this time she was uneasy. I don’t know what it was, maybe she wasn’t getting a job. She wasn’t happy there. When she say she staying I say well settle up or get something to do. Most of the time we used to speak on weekends. I know once she good she ain’t go call,” Samaroo said.
Samaroo said her daughter had planned to return to Trinidad last Friday but decided to remain in Tobago for another week.
She said Stacy has one child, whom she shares custody of with the child’s father.
“Last week Friday I talk to her, she say, ‘Yuh pick up meh daughter?’
“I told her she not coming again because she has to go out on Sunday and go come the next weekend instead.”
Samaroo said Stacy was eager to see her 14-year-old daughter, Shiloh.
“She even called her daughter and talk to her and say make sure and come this Friday because I coming to spend time with you.”
The grieving mother said she became aware something was wrong after posts began circulating on social media about a body discovered in Tobago bearing tattoos that matched those of her daughter.
“How I know it was her was when they put it out on social media that they find the tattoo on her arm and the name Shiloh, and they find the body in Tobago, and that’s when I knew it was my daughter,” she said.
Samaroo said the discovery has left her shaken and she was advised by her other daughter not to view the body at the Scarborough mortuary on Wednesday night. Her husband and another daughter later identified the body.
She also urged members of the public to stop maligning Stacy on social media to make the tragedy more “juicy”.
“Social media putting so much ah thing—that she having problem with money. If she have problem with money, she have she mother, she have she father, we woulda send some money with Western Union for she to buy she ticket. I don’t know how much is true, how much is not true.
“Some of the things people putting up on social media, it not easy to read, yuh know. It not easy at all. I mean she had she friends, she was a limer, but some of these comments, oh my God. People putting things to sound more juicy.”
She said her granddaughter is distraught after being told of her mother’s death on Wednesday.
“She love her daughter eh, and she daughter loves she mummy. They tell she the news yesterday and oh God, yuh know how a child go take it to hear her mother passed away. She needs all the love and comfort she could get now.”
Asked about her relationship with Stacy, Samaroo said they shared a close bond.
“We had a good relationship. Mother and daughter, sometimes she go quarrel with you and next minute she go talk to you like nothing happen. Which mother and daughter don’t have a lil falling out? It not to say we vex or enemies. Everybody in the village knows how she is. She is a real nice person.”
The family is now awaiting the results of a forensic autopsy to determine whether Samaroo drowned or was murdered.
An eyewitness who helped retrieve the body told Guardian Media that a rope was found around her neck. However, Samaroo said it may have been debris in the ocean that became tangled around the body, and the family is not jumping to conclusions.
Another relative said they were unaware whether Stacy had been in a relationship with anyone in Tobago.
Police investigations are ongoing.
