British family desperate for info on relative missing in Jamaica

Seymour Samuels

(Jamaica Observer) A British family is now waiting with bated breath as local investigators try to determine the whereabouts of their 82-year-old relative, who has been missing since October 25.

Edward Samuels, whose father Seymour went missing in Hanover, contacted the Jamaica Observer yesterday, stating that his father, a United States citizen, visited the island in April with the intention to remain, but has not been seen since leaving his family’s home on the date mentioned.

“We are simply devastated,” the younger Samuels, who lives in the United Kingdom, said during a telephone interview with the Observer.

He explained that his father, who spent approximately 15 years in the UK before relocating to the US where he spent 40 years, was a resident of New York.

Samuels said that the elder man decided to relocate to Jamaica, where he was born, and was staying with family members at the time of his disappearance.

“We arranged for my dad’s niece to have him at their house when he returned, and he stayed there for a while before he decided to go to his nephew’s house, which is in Jerusalem, Hanover. So from there, things started to decline…

“There was a lot of demands on him financially and they wanted him to build a room onto the back of their house, which he would be staying in… They had somebody to build the piece on the back. They agreed on the price to build the piece on the back and then when I called, my dad was not very happy. The builder said that they needed extra funds to complete the project.

“Obviously, this was a temporary accommodation for my dad because he wasn’t planning on staying there,” he said.

The man told the Observer that after speaking to his father on October 24, and to the person he was staying with the following morning, his father was said to have left the house.

“He hasn’t been seen since. He never came back. So we’re praying for him, but things don’t look very good at the moment… From what I have gathered, it wasn’t reported to the police until Saturday [of that week] that he was missing. He went missing on the Thursday. He’s 82 [years old] so if he leaves the house on Thursday and he doesn’t come back all night, it should have been reported before Saturday,” he said.

“We’ve been ringing his phone for the last five or six weeks. I just came back from Jamaica today (yesterday). I’ve been there for two weeks. While I’ve been there I spoke to the police; I’ve been talking to the police here. My dad, when he left the house where he was staying, he left his clothes, he left his passport, he left all of his documentation. He didn’t take anything with him. He only took his mobile phone and maybe the money he had in his pocket.

“We’ve been calling him since the 25th of October and his phone has been constantly [going to] voicemail. On the 2nd or 3rd of December, we rang his phone and someone answered. Some young man picked up his phone and my partner said, ‘What are you doing with Seymour’s phone?’, and he said he found it on the beach somewhere in some old clothes. We tried to call him back but he didn’t answer. I’ve reported this to the police. It’s been six weeks; seven tomorrow (today). We’re all desperate to hear something,” Samuels said.