Two days after he fell off a vessel on its way to a fishing spot in the Atlantic Ocean, the partly decomposed body of 42-year-old Kenneth Melville was found just off the Kitty Foreshore around 6 am yesterday.
Relatives and friends of Melville who had resided at Pigeon Island Squatting Area, East Coast Demerara (ECD) with his reputed wife had accepted that the man would never return after they received the news on Tuesday afternoon that he had fallen into the ocean and disappeared.
Stabroek News understands that following the early morning discovery several relatives including the captain of the boat were grilled by the police.
Police said in a release yesterday afternoon that Melville left the Meadow Bank Wharf to catch fish in the area of the Berbice river mouth and about 2:30 pm “it is alleged that he suffered an attack of epilepsy and fell overboard” at Lusignan, ECD.
Reports are that someone walking along the seawall spotted a body floating in the water and pulled it ashore.
The police were subsequently called in. On investigating, they discovered that it was the body of the fisherman, who had been reported missing at the Vigilance Police Station.
The body is now resting at the Lyken’s Funeral Home and has to be buried as soon as possible because of its advanced state of decomposition. Relatives said that they have fixed tomorrow as the date for the funeral.
The man’s father Neville Melville while stressing that his son might have died from drowning questioned why there was a piece of “cement sling” tied around his chest when he viewed his body at the morgue.
He said the boat captain, who is a very good friend of the family, told him, “all he see is he foot go over the boat and the water was up to he neck and then he disappeared.“
The elder Melville said that the boat was at Lusignan at the time of the mishap but was not far out and after his son fell over board, it returned to shore.
He added that a missing person’s report was subsequently lodged at the police station.
When Stabroek News visited the community, residents were recalling what a nice man, Melville had been.
Speaking from her humble abode a few metres from her son’s, a distraught Nazatoon Ali called `Patsy’ recalled the last time she saw him.
She said that on Tuesday morning around 8, he left his home to go and work on the sea. Before he left, she said he told his reputed wife “Don’t mek ah come back and hear nothing,” and then left the area.
According to her he was going to work with a man named Ricky, who lives a few doors down from her.
The captain and four-man crew boarded the vessel at Meadow Bank and were scheduled to be at sea for no more than 14 days.
“When he reach by Pigeon Island in the river, he call the boat owner and informed him of where he is. About half an hour after that the owner got a second call from the captain [Ricky] that he [Melville] fall out de boat and they looking for him,” the teary-eyed woman recalled.
She said the remaining crewmembers conducted several more searches but failed.
The woman added that it was around five minutes to two on Tuesday afternoon that her husband received the news that Melville had fallen overboard.
She said she was in the city and immediately travelled home where she waited on more news about her missing son but nothing was forthcoming.
“All ah din getting is a set a calls that they searching but ain’t finding nothing,” Ali said, adding that around 6:30 yesterday morning, the owner of the vessel who is a policeman telephoned her with the news that her son’s body was found at the Kitty seawall.
The father and the boat captain subsequently travelled to the city to identify the remains.
Her eyes filling up with tears, Ali blamed the tragedy on the fact that her son was recently suspended from the market where he operated a pushcart.
She explained that after he was suspended from Stabroek Market for 17 days, he went to the boat captain and asked to go out to sea to work.
She said that had he not been suspended he would have been alive today.
The woman pointed out though that he had gone to sea on several occasions and returned safely.
Stabroek News was told that this was the second drowning tragedy to beset the family in recent times and they both occurred in the same month. Ali said that about two years ago, Melville’s son, who would have been about seven years old today, drowned after his stepsister pushed him into the Demerara River at the Vreed-en-Hoop Stelling.
She said her son had one remaining child, a daughter who is five years old.
Ali described Melville as a kind person who respected everyone. He was the third of five children.
