A mother got the shock of her life when she found her missing son on Wednesday in the morgue of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Twenty-two-year-old Kellon Crawford of Annandale, East Coast Demerara who went missing on November 1st was apparently struck down by a speeding car. Crawford worked as a porter.
The mother of the deceased, Chandrawattie Dhanraj yesterday told Stabroek News that Crawford left their home at 10:30 two Sunday nights ago with friends but never returned. According to the woman she didn’t go in search of her son until Tuesday since the rain fell from Sunday night and throughout Monday.
The woman said that on Tuesday, she and one of Crawford’s friends went in search for him at all his friends’ residences that they knew and when they didn’t find him she went to the Vigilance Police Station to make a report. The police there, she said, sent her to the Beterverwagting Police Station who then sent her back to Vigilance Police Station to make her report. However, despite taking her report, Dhanraj said the police told her to search for her son herself.
Later that day, a friend told her to check the GPH as two accidents were said to have occurred the same Sunday night the man went missing. However, because it was late already, she decided to go to the hospital the next day.
On Wednesday morning when Dhanraj turned up at the hospital, she met the hospital’s security guard who checking his records told her that two persons were brought to the hospital having ended up in accidents at Annandale. The woman said she further learnt that one of the two persons was dead already when he arrived at the hospital and the other was seriously injured and was a patient in one of the wards. Finding two undertakers, she showed them a photo of Crawford enquiring whether they had seen her son, when one of the men said that he did, Dhanraj was taken to the mortuary where she identified the deceased as her son.
“Ah get weak when I see he. He … used to mind we. I don’t work nowhere,” lamented the woman.
Crawford suffered multiple head injuries as well as a broken arm.
On Saturday, the woman said she was visited by the mother of one of her son’s friends who told her that Crawford was at her residence the same night, he met his demise and had left their home at 11 pm as he had to work the next day. The dead man’s mother said that she learnt also that on his way back home, Crawford had stopped around minutes to midnight at the scene of an accident involving a 14-year-old boy. He was said to have left the scene of this accident and ended up in one which took his life.
According to the woman, her older son spoke with a man who said he witnessed the accident. The woman said that man told her family that her son was in the corner of the road when a speeding car appeared from nowhere and hit her son before running into a nearby Hindu temple.
Photos of the car said to be involved in the accident were shared with this newspaper. The vehicle, a blue Spacio showed damage to the front. The number plates were removed.
Dhanraj said she has no money to bury her son adding that his body is currently at Jerrick’s Funeral Home and each day he remains there the bill is adding up.
She further said that since the incident the family of the driver of the car has not reached out to offer their condolences.
The suspect according to the woman was arrested by the police but has since been released on station bail. (Joanna Dhanraj)
