(Trinidad Express) – No one could say why a responsible mother of four would travel to a deserted beach to meet a man she had never seen before. Law clerk Gail Joseph, 41, met the man on Internet social network site Tagged.com and had been chatting with him for some time, police said.
The couple arranged to meet for the man’s birthday on Sunday.
She drove out of her Mary Street, Siparia, home on Sunday morning in her Honda Civic car. Police said Joseph stopped at a supermarket, where she bought a cake and alcoholic drinks. In the car was a neatly wrapped birthday present, police said.
But their first date ended in death. Joseph’s decomposing body was dragged out of a swamp near the Nariva River mouth in Manzanilla on Wednesday. Her corpse was found not far from the coconut plantation where Gail Durity’s body was found exactly a year ago. Durity’s throat, face and head had been cut open, police said.
The object of Joseph’s Internet affection, a 37-year-old Belmont man, told police on Sunday night they were swimming in the river, when Joseph asked for her slippers. The man said he left the water and when he returned, Joseph had disappeared. He searched the area but she was not found, police said.
The man then went to the Manzanilla Police Post and made a report. He was being questioned by police.
Police had used tracker dogs and a Ministry of National Security helicopter, but after an extensive search of the area they came up empty-handed. Divers were also called in to search the deep waters off the east coast, but nothing was found.
It was a group of game wardens who spotted the corpse, entangled in a web of tree roots in a swamp.
Game warden Pretam Khemraj told police they were passing through the area, when they encountered a stench.
Khemraj said they went to the swamp, where they saw Joseph’s body.
The corpse was clad in a black two-piece bathing suit, police said.
Joseph’s siblings embraced each other and wailed as her body was being removed by undertakers. Her sister, Terry Baig, said they had not expected to find her dead.
“This is not what we came here for, we wanted her alive. I don’t know this man, so I don’t doubt it is the first time she was meeting him,” she said.
Baig said her sister’s four daughters–ages five to 17 years–were distraught. And her elderly mother was unable to cope with her daughter’s death. “It is really hard for us because Gail was a responsible, gentle, loving woman. I don’t know why she would go to meet someone she did not know,” she said.
Joseph, who divorced her husband five years ago, was employed at the law firm Girwar and Deonarine in San Fernando.
Attorney Susan Mulchan said: “Gail would be missed. She was an excellent employee and was a friend to everyone here. She has been working here for 12 years and was a very professional person.”
