Every morn­ing since her hus­band’s dis­ap­pear­ance on Ju­ly 6, Sav­it­ri Ja­cob woke with the hope that he would re­turn home alive. But on Sat­ur­day, some­time af­ter 4 pm, her worst fears were con­firmed when his de­com­pos­ing body was found un­der a bam­boo patch about three kilo­me­tres from their Bronte Vil­lage, Princes Town home. An au­top­sy is ex­pect­ed this week to de­ter­mine how 57-year-old El­ton Ja­cob died.

His wife said he had been bat­tling di­a­betes and de­men­tia, and had wan­dered off from home be­fore she woke that morn­ing, around 5 o’clock.

Search­es were con­duct­ed by the po­lice, the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Val­lence Ramb­harat, and fam­i­ly and friends. Some­time be­fore 4 pm, a farmer trekking through the area no­ticed a foul stench. He alert­ed a neigh­bour, who then con­tact­ed Ja­cob’s rel­a­tives. They went to the area and found the body.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, 51-year-old Sav­it­ri said next month would have marked their 22nd wed­ding an­niver­sary. Al­though this was not the out­come she prayed for, she said she felt a sense of clo­sure.

“I kind of feel re­lief be­cause I know re­al­ly what hap­pen to him, be­cause I could not just go on hop­ing that I get to see him one day, not know­ing what hap­pened to him. He just van­ished in­to thin air.”

She had held out hope he would re­turn home alive. “I had high hopes. Every day I watch­ing out­side to see if he comes. Every day when I open the door, I use to see if he on the mat­tress, sit down, be­cause I had a mat­tress for him to lie down dur­ing the day, most nights.”

She be­lieves he died from nat­ur­al caus­es. “You know di­a­bet­ic peo­ple, if they not get­ting their food on time and if they not tak­ing their med­ica­tion, what will hap­pen. The sug­ar will drop very low. He prob­a­bly black out and that was it.”

She said he pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a labour­er and land­scap­er with a con­trac­tor.

One of the mem­bers of the search par­ty, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said they had searched on Thurs­day and Fri­day close to where the body was even­tu­al­ly found, but had not de­tect­ed any stench. He de­scribed Ja­cob as a “poor guy, try­ing to make ends meet” and thanked the po­lice and the Hunters team for their as­sis­tance.

The fam­i­ly will head to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in Port of Spain to­day (Mon­day). Po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.