Search for missing student to intensify

The number of persons searching for missing University of the West Indies (UWI) student Chaleen Evans is expected to swell today as extensive combing of bushes by anxious relatives, friends, and the security forces up to late Monday had to be called off because of poor lighting.

Up to last evening, Evans has been missing for three days after leaving her home in Clifton district in Hanover on Christmas morning.

The Gleaner has been informed that more persons from Orchard and Clifton communities in Hanover will join the security forces in their relentless hunt to find Evans today.

Monday’s search started as early as 7 a.m. with a combination of police personnel, members of the fire brigade, K9-dogs, members of the Jamaica Defence Force, the Orchard Gardens Citizens Association and neighbourhood watch, close relatives and friends of the missing woman.

The 27-year-old woman, who is affectionately called ‘Chin’, reportedly left her home to visit her babyfather but they allegedly had a dispute on Saturday morning, at which time she reportedly ran from the house with her child.

Chaleen, who is also said to have been suffering from depression, reportedly left the child along the roadway outside the entrance to her babyfather’s home and ran into nearby bushes.

Since then she has not been seen, but her father, Kitson Evans, told The Gleaner that he spoke to his daughter for more than two hours while she was still lost in the bushes until her cell phone went dead.

Evans said he had intended to pick up his daughter from her babyfather’s home in Hopewell, but on Saturday morning he received a call from the young man that Chaleen had run off.

He said he left his home and drove to the community of Orchard where he organised a search party and they made several calls to her cell phone until he finally got in touch with her.

“When mi get fi communicate with her, she seh, ‘Mi a go jump daddy, mi a go jump’. Mi seh ‘No man, how yu fi do that’?”

He said his daughter in Kingston and his niece from abroad also contacted Chaleen encouraging her to return home.

Evans said that he was aware that his daughter was suffering from depression, and also that she was going through an emotional phase of disagreement back at their home in Clifton district.

“We manage fi calm her down, and den mi and she start talk and she seh, ‘Daddy weh yu deh?’, and mi seh, ‘Wi out a road’, and she seh mi fi come fi her.”

He also mentioned that she is presently enrolled at The UWI as a banking and finance student, with only six months left to complete her course.

Evans said his daughter is a very good person but in recent times she has been suffering from depression.

Chaleen’s babyfather, who did not wish to speak to the media, also played a vital role in the search to locate his child’s mother. He told The Gleaner that he cared a lot for his baby-mother and would never harm her in any way.