Elderly Clarendon man missing for almost a decade
Published:Thursday | July 11, 2019 | 12:20 AMOlivia Brown/Gleaner Writer
September 2011 will forever be etched in the minds of the relatives of Lester Boothe, who is popularly known as ‘Brother Boodie’ in his Content, York Town community. Boothe went missing almost a decade ago. Perpetuating the family’s pain is the plethora of uncertainty surrounding Boothe’s disappearance. Though his family believe he is deceased, they are yet to find the body of the elderly man who had an inseparable relationship with his bicycle – his preferred mode of transportation.
In an interview with The Gleaner, Boothe’s daughter Juline described him as a friendly and jovial individual. In retrospect, she sought to recapture the day she last saw her father. “Him go weh the morning ‘bout 10 o’clock. A afta me mother see 4 o’clock come now and we cyaa see him come she say no man, sup’m wrong.” She said the family subsequently filed a missing person’s report at the Four Paths Police Station, when Boothe failed to return home that day.
Juline highlighted the emotional distress the family endured, especially Boothe’s wife Olga, who died in 2014, three years following her husband’s disappearance. She admits that the situation is still “stressful” as the family has not received closure.
When asked if the elder Boothe had a history of wandering off, Juline told The Gleaner that her father was diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease shortly before he went missing at the age of 74. The disease, she said, impacted his judgement and daily routines. “Me carry him go Mandeville Hospital and them say him illness cyaa cure.” She added that searches which spanned several weeks proved futile in ascertaining any information on her father’s whereabouts. “Him stop a waa yard a Rhymesbury and the helper there say him leave and say him cyaa find back him way. A direction me get say him gone a Rhymesbury.” Rhymesbury, a neighbouring community, is one which Juline stated that her father visited regularly, and information she received suggests that said community is where ‘Brother Boodie’ was last seen.
His daughter said it is a shared sentiment among Boothe’s nine children that he is deceased, but even so, they are reluctant to facilitate any funerary activity in his honour as they “have no proof” of his death.