Body found near Cedros confirmed as missing diver

CAROL MATROO

PETE-ANN Bartholomew said the dental records produced yesterday officially confirmed that the decomposed body found floating five miles off Cedros was that of her husband Chevonne. He was 37.

The body was found after he disappeared while inspecting an oil tanker in Chaguaramas on January 29. “This is finally closure. Right now I have to drive all the way to Point Fortin to sign papers for his body, because that is where he was found,” she said.

Bartholomew said she still had to tell her two children that their Daddy had been found dead. Her son Zion was told on Thursday there was a possibility that their father had died, but said it would have to be confirmed.

“With Zoe (their daughter) it is going to be a bit more difficult, because she has been asking for her Daddy,” Bartholomew’s widow said. Zion turned 12 on Thursday, the day his father’s body was recovered.

Pete-Ann Bartholomew’s father Pastor Peter Regis described Chevonne as a strong family man.

“He was an excellent father and husband. The strength that Pete-Ann has now is a backdrop of the relationship that they had. He was not a limer or bacchanal man. He was a husband and father who was committed. She has a strange kind of strength –baffling – and it comes from God, tapped into built up resources she has had with God over the years,” Regis said.

The couple would have been married for 14 years this June. They lived at Flamboyant Crescent, Valencia. Chevonne’s funeral is tentatively set for Monday at Faith Assembly International, Five Rivers.