Senior Multimedia Reporter
radhica.sookraj@guardian.co.tt
In the days before his death, Russell Bedasse posted about the agony he felt over the injustices he faced after losing both his mother, Shelawaihtie Bedasse and restrictions over the visitation rights of his 11-year-old daughter.
He had been fighting for full custody of the child, who is scheduled to write the Secondary Entrance Assessment examination next March.
A relative, who requested anonymity, told Guardian Media that Bedasse felt cheated by the court.
Despite being gainfully employed and having a proper house with all amenities, he was granted only visitation rights.
The relative said Bedasse desperately wanted a relationship with his daughter, but every attempt was thwarted by the court system.
He became even more isolated after his mother’s untimely death on Republic Day after her body was found hanging from a tree at Clifton Hill, Point Fortin.
Bedasse felt the police were not doing enough to solve her case, which he was convinced was a murder.
The relative said after resigning from the TTPS and turning in his badge and uniform, Bedasse began making candles to earn a livelihood.
“He used to go all about and sell. He used to pay maintenance, and still he wasn’t getting to see his daughter,” the relative said.
Around 4.45 pm on Tuesday, police said Bedasse took the keys from his current wife to open the downstairs area of their Coromandle Village, Cedros home to look for a cover for his bird cage.
About ten minutes later, he returned the keys to his wife and locked himself downstairs from the inside.
She checked on him around 5.15 pm and discovered him hanging from a piece of cord tied to a concrete beam inside the room.
She quickly opened the door, raised an alarm and saw blood on the floor and around the body.
A knife with bloodstains was found on top of a counter nearby.
Police believe Bedasse attempted to slit his throat and, when that failed, he used the cord to hang himself.
Sgt Ramjattan and a party of officers from the Cedros Police Station visited the scene.
Responding to the death, Father’s Association President Rhondell Feeles said he felt deep sadness over Bedasse’s passing.
Feeles said a few weeks before her death, Shelawaihtie sent him a voice note complaining that her son was being denied access to his daughter.
“This hurts me so deeply, his mother was the first one who reached out to me to help her son. She was such a lovely woman who had followed me for years,” Feeles said.
He said he had advised Bedasse on steps to take.
“Being a police officer, he chose to trust what his attorney said over what I advised – a decision he later told me he regretted.”
Feeles added: “This grandmother and father were both parentally alienated from their granddaughter and daughter, respectively. Last week, he tagged himself in a post I shared with my son. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of him after that. The grandmother’s voice notes on my phone tell the story of a mother and grandmother desperately begging for justice.”
Shelawaihtie, 57, was found hanging from a tree at Clifton Hill beach on Republic Day. Bedasse was convinced she had been murdered and her body staged to appear as a suicide.
In his final interview with Guardian Media on September 25, Bedasse insisted his mother was not suicidal and criticised senior officers for failing to search for her when he first reported her missing on September 23.
He said officers did not act quickly when he filed the missing person report, despite providing her last known location and details of the vehicle she entered.
He resigned from the police service, saying he could not work in a system he believed had failed his family.
Bedasse’s father, who suffered renal failure, also committed suicide in June 2014 by hanging himself on a tree outside their Coromandel home.
An autopsy is expected to be done on Bedasse’s body tomorrow.
