‘We are still hoping’

WESTERN BUREAU:

Just over a year after the mysterious disappearance of 61-year-old Joyce Fearon during a church trip in Manchester, her sister, Nerissa Cassells, remains hopeful that someone will come forward with credible information to reunite the St James resident with her family.

“We are still hoping. There has been no news, or else it would have been passed on to me. It has been a full year, but ... I still have hope,” Cassells told The Sunday Gleaner while speaking about her sister, who disappeared on Heroes Day, October 16, 2023.

“Everybody in the family is calling on me, leaning on me, and asking me what is the next move. Well, I say, ‘I’m going to look again. Do you want to come?’ That is all I can say,” Cassells added.

Fearon, who hails from Barnett Oval in Montego Bay, was attending a women’s convention in Christiana, Manchester, with a group from the Montego Bay-based Faith Temple Assembly of God, where she worships. She is described as being five feet three inches tall and about 190 pounds, with low-cut white hair, and was last seen clad in a white blouse and a red skirt.

The missing woman, who is nicknamed ‘Maxine’ and who suffered two strokes in 2022 that affected her personality, reportedly left her belongings behind at the venue when she vanished.

Her relatives, including her adult son and daughter, said they were unaware that she was going on the trip, and her disappearance went unnoticed by members of the church group until when they were preparing to leave the venue.

According to Cassells, the most recent clue about her sister’s whereabouts came in March this year, when she met a woman who claimed to know someone who may have seen Fearon. Unfortunately, she said that the woman refused to provide additional details.

“Earlier this year, sometime in March, I was speaking to somebody, and she said, ‘This man said he saw her [Fearon] with a man,’ and she said that he said, ‘Then nuh you dem a look for?’ and that the person said to him, ‘You know me?’ All I asked the lady afterward is ‘Where?’ but she answered and said, ‘But then the man not going to get into trouble?’ and she did not talk to me again,” Cassells told The Sunday Gleaner.

“The lady really asked if the man is going to get in trouble. How can you be so heartless? I said to her, ‘He won’t get in any trouble, and the police don’t have any reason to lock him up.’ Just my sister answering, ‘Do you know me?’, means she would be out of it,” Cassells added, referencing Fearon’s mental state. “So I simply messaged the lady and said that this gives me hope.”

That hint to Fearon’s whereabouts follows a previous possible lead after her disappearance in October 2023, when her relatives were reportedly contacted by a man who claimed to know the woman’s whereabouts and wanted a reward for his supposed information.

Security footage was also examined between October 2023 and February this year to verify reports that Fearon was spotted in Albert Town, Trelawny. However, the analysis failed to provide any meaningful information.

Bishop Conrad Pitkin, the custos of St James and the pastor of the Faith Temple Assembly of God, is frustrated with the lack of progress in finding Fearon, who was a member of his congregation for a decade before she disappeared. He said that he would not stop in his efforts to find her.

“There is no trace of her, not a trace. One year, and not a trace. It has been rough on us as a church family, and it is the anniversary of her going missing. I am the one that has been leading in trying to understand what is going on, and searching and still asking, but the police have not been able to give us any trace at all,” Pitkin told The Sunday Gleaner.

“We have done everything that we humanly, possibly can, and we are just hoping and praying that somehow, something will happen. We have combed Manchester and we have combed upper Trelawny, but we are still not giving up,” Pitkin continued.

The Sunday Gleaner contacted the Christiana Police Station in Manchester, where Fearon’s disappearance was reported, for an update on their investigation. However, the station indicated that such information was not available.

According to the International Journal of Current Research in Education, Culture and Society, 8,326 people were reported missing in Jamaica between January 1, 2018 and July 31, 2022, of which 5,961 were returned home and 223 were confirmed dead.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force’s latest statistics indicate that 1,195 people were reported missing between January 1 and September 30 this year, a shade under the 1,244 missing person reports over the same period in 2023. For the entirety of 2023, there were 1,648 missing person reports. Some 1,354 returned home and 43 were reported dead.

In the meantime, Cassells is leaning on her faith as she and her family keep hope alive.

“There is nothing else I can do, so I have to hold out the hope, and I serve a living God. What the person [who allegedly saw Fearon] reportedly said about her, it lets me have more hope, because if she said, ‘You know me?’, then that means she is lost. I just have to keep hope alive,” said Cassells.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com

How you can help

Anyone who may have information leading to the return of Joyce Fearon is being asked to call her sister, Nerissa Cassells, at 876-324-9259, the 119 police emergency number, or the nearest police station.