The mother of missing Alpha Hotel owner Roselaine Hall is contending that someone who is close to her daughter should be made to answer for her whereabouts.
Hall went missing two weeks ago and was last seen in the company of her ex-husband by staff at the hotel. The police have since issued an arrest warrant for the man, Alex Barker, while her husband Romeo Rockerfeller remains in custody assisting the force with investigations.
Speaking with this newspaper from her Maryland, USA home, the missing woman’s mother, Joyce Hall-Mc Pherson said she last spoke with her daughter on January 22 and learnt on February 5, via a message recorded on her telephone answering machine that she could not be found.
She said it was her daughter’s husband Romeo Rockerfeller who left the message.
The woman told Stabroek News that her daughter, who is also the mother of a 13-year-old girl, had only in 2004 graduated from a Washington University with an associate degree in business administration but after her father Byron Dick was killed in front of his home back in 2003, she came to Guyana to manage her part of the estate. Hall became owner of the South Road location of the hotel where she has been living since.
The mother told Stabroek News that her daughter had first married Alex Barker who she referred to as Kwabena Barker and had divorced him sometime back. She said she was also aware of her daughter’s second marriage to Rockerfeller but according to her, Hall was in the process of getting a second divorce.
The woman said it was unusual for her not to hear from her daughter since she called them often but not once had she spoken to Rockerfeller who got married to Hall sometime in March last year.
Rockerfeller has since been charged and appeared in court on charges of obtaining credit by false pretence, producing a false travel document and uttering a forged document.
Mc Pherson said on countless occasions Hall complained of being physically abused by Barker and always complained of being afraid.
“She was scared because he beat her all the time and even the staff knows this. I was trying to get her to come back home but she was so interested in wanting to stay in Guyana. She wanted to do so much and she even opened a boutique and was trying to upgrade the building and I think she had it painted up. She wanted to make the business work,” the woman said.
Hall also told her mother that she had been threatened by her current husband on several occasions and this was the reason why she had proceeded to file for a divorce.
“He too was not supposed to be around her, she has filed for a divorce. She told me about him (and) I told her to go ahead,” she recounted.
She said she never felt that her daughter would be safe in a foreign country and these fears increased”.
Questioned about whether she knew that her daughter was supposed to have gone to Trinidad with her husband for carnival, the woman said no and said she believed that this story was fabricated.
Why can’t they find Rosie?
Mc Pherson said she has been devastated since she learnt of her daughter’s disappearance and the family has not received any real information on the status of investigations into the matter and the search for her daughter.
“I am trying to get answers because we are worried. Why can’t they find Rosie?” the woman asked.
Coming to Guyana is however not an option the woman is considering since she too fears any misfortune during her stay here. “Only if I know I had protection I would come. It’s a small country and I want to know what the police are doing. I just want Rosie back and I want to bring her back home,” the woman said.
Mc Pherson says she is in contact with the United States authorities as she tries to garner as much information while the police continue their search for the missing woman.
Speaking to this newspaper, a former staff member said Hall was a great employer and always supportive of her staff and while they realized on several occasions that she was abused even in full view of staff, they stayed clear of her affairs.
The woman said Hall was always business-oriented and really wanted to develop the hotel and this is why she opened an internet caf
