Family believes high school girl who disappeared 11 weeks ago is dead
More than eleven weeks after an Ocho Rios High School girl went missing her family is accepting that she may be dead and blaming the police for lack of closure.
Shanel Hurd, 15, of St Ann, disappeared August 11, after going to visit her boyfriend in Port Maria St Mary. The boyfriend, believed to be 18 reportedly told police that after her visit, about 11 p.m. he put Shanel on a taxi and hasn’t seen her since either.
Police were doing forensic investigations to determine alleged texting between the two and calls made around the time the girl was said to be last seen by the boyfriend.
The grandmother of the teen girl from Mammee Bay in St Ann, said while the family is still hoping to locate the missing girl, they believe she is dead and would like to find her remains if that is the case.
Shanel Hurd, a 15-year-old, tenth grade student at Ocho Rios High at the time she went missing on August 11, would have celebrated her 16th birthday on September 22. The girl who is from Mammee Bay, midway between Ocho rios and St Ann’s Bay has not been seen since she reportedly went to visit her boyfriend in Port Maria, St Mary, some 50 kilometers from where she lived with her grandmother.
Maxine Brown Thompson, Shanel’s grandmother told the North Coast Times that the family is trying very hard to cope and that they fear the worse has happened to the teen who she said was not behaving very well before she went missing.
The grandmother is however upset because she believes the Police in St. Ann are not giving the girl’s disappearance the attention that it deserves. According to Mrs Brown Thompson the police are not doing enough to find Shanel or her remains if she is dead. She said the police need to step up their investigation.
SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP
“I want the police to do more, because they not doing anything. Shanel didn’t run away, she went to visit the boyfriend, she didn’t run away so they (the police) need to do more.”
Mrs Brown Thompson believes the boyfriend should face serious interrogation since he was the last person to see her alive. Also, she believes an active probe should be underway regarding the sexual relationship between the two.
She told the North Coast Times that since Shanel’s disappearance it has been revealed that the two were sexually involved and she said the police should be investigating that, because the girl was underage (or below the age of consent) although the boyfriend is about two years older. That would mean a likely charge of carnal abuse against the boyfriend.
Further, the grandmother said the boyfriend too often changed his stories regarding the girl. She said although the police have said they are looking into the phone records because text messages were reportedly exchanged between the teen lovers while Shanel was on route to Ocho Rios, more still needs to be done because those records might not come anytime soon.
BOYFRIEND’S PARENTS
Mrs Brown Thompson is also questioning why the boy’s parents allowed the girl to regularly visit the home and why they did not seek to reach out to Shanel’s family because she was underage.
The boyfriend reportedly called the family on Tuesday, August 12 after Shanel didn’t arrive home from her visit to his house in Port Maria, on Monday, August 11, the day before. The family had been trying to find the girl and learnt through the boyfriend that the two were together in Port Maria on Monday, August 11.
The boyfriend also reportedly told police that he placed her on a taxi about 11 at night and that they texted throughout the journey. The last text between the two was reportedly when the girl had reached Ocho Rios and boarded a taxi to Mammee Bay.
NO DETAILS
Mrs Brown Thompson said she does not believe the boyfriend’s story and said he changed it too many times. She said she was also concerned that the boyfriend didn’t take note of the colour or make of the taxi or who was driving the car that he claimed he put her on to Ocho Rios.
She said the family is having a real hard time coping and is finding it very difficult to eat and sleep. She said the girl’s disappearance has been very rough on the family. Shanel’s mother, Carona Hepburn, she said has to be taking it easy because her blood pressure continues to rise.
“We think she is dead, the family thinks that she is dead, that they kill her,” she told the North Coast Times that the family has been in constant prayer and the feeling and answer from the prayers have led them to believe that she was killed.
“The dreams that we have been getting, although some people don’t believe in dreams, but we have reasons to believe that she is no longer alive,” the grandmother said. She said the family have not given up on their search for her, but is bracing for the worse.
“What we are doing now, we are praying because the police not doing anything to that, so we the family are praying that somebody will just come forward and confess that we find the remains that we could do a funeral.”
