(Trinidad Express) As Debe grandmother Sita Jagessar was laid to rest yesterday, her daughter Melissa Jagessar was charged with her murder.
Jagessar, 62, was remembered at her funeral service as a hard-working and strong woman, who loved her children and family dearly, and dedicated her life to them.
Thirty-five-year-old Melissa Jagessar was detained shortly after her mother was found dead at her home at Clarkia Drive, Serenity Heights, on April 19.
An autopsy found that Jagessar’s death was due to multiple blunt force injuries and manual strangulation.
Homicide investigators of Region III, led by ASP Sean Dhilpaul, conducted enquiries and on Wednesday received instructions from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge Melissa with the offence of murder. The charge was laid by WPC Massy.
Police had said Jagessar and her daughter had a rocky relationship and that the elderly woman had taken out a restraining order against her.
At the funeral service held a JE Guide Funeral Home and Crematorium Ltd in San Fernando, her daughter, Marilyn, was overcome with grief upon the viewing of the body.
“Ma no!”, Marilyn wailed, as relatives held her and attempted to console her as she stood over the white casket bearing her mother’s body.
Marilyn knelt beside the white casket and wept for several minutes, lifting her head at times to speak softly to her departed mother who was dressed in pink Indian style garments.
Earlier, Pastor Sharon Boodoosingh read written tributes from Marilyn and a few members of the immediate family.
Boodoosingh said Marilyn said of her mother, “Mummy was my foundation. I had no care in the world because of her. All I had to do was to cook and go to work. I didn’t know what the word responsibility was, or what it actually meant because she stood with us from childhood until womanhood. I have lost my love, my strength, my corrector and most of all, my mother. She was my guidance.”
Forgive and live
A tribute from Marilyn’s husband, Rishi Persad, remembered Jagessar as a woman who taught him to be a father, a husband, an adult and a man.
“She even taught me to be a better husband,” he wrote.
A granddaughter of Jagessar said she had lost her dancing partner.
“She was my friend, my partner for sleeping, and going for drives. She was not only my mama, but she was also my mother, my friend and my dancing partner,” read Boodoosingh.
Boodoosingh said Jagessar, whom she knew since childhood, was “a mighty woman”, and remembered her as a hard-working and dedicated mother and wife.
She recalled that Jagessar and her late husband had worked as coconut and oyster vendors at the round-a-bout at Cross Crossing, San Fernando, as earned the nickname, “Coconut girl”.
“Nothing was too much for her to give, even up to her last days. She served her title as a mother and she served it well,” said Boodoosingh.
Pastor Suresh Harripersad in delivering the sermon called on the congregation to spend quality time with God and obey the commandment to forgive others.
“Forgive those who wrong you. Forgive those who cause you pain. When you do that, it is for your blessing,” said Harripersad.
He called on the congregation to pray for peace and protection for the family of Jagessar.
Following the funeral service the body was cremated at the crematorium of the funeral home.
