Mother continues call for justice

More than one year after the murders of 5-year-old Saleesha Joseph and her father Solomon Joseph rocked the Central village of Mamoral Number 2, there have been no updates into the investigation and no suspects arrested, even after mother and wife of the victims, Kernisha Joseph claims to be the victim of repeated threats.

Speaking with Newsday yesterday, Joseph, who was only 22 years old at the time of her husband and daughter’s murder lamented the lack of follow-up investigations by officers of the Homicide Bureau Region 3 and says she believes the killers are walking free in Mamoral. Both father and daughter were shot and killed at around 3.30 am on April 28 at the family’s Leekham Road, Mamoral home. Joseph said she tried calling her husband several times to come and pick her up at the casino where she worked, not knowing he and her daighter were already dead. She said after calling her uncle who lived just around the corner to check on Solomon, she could hear the anguish in his voice as he and other relatives discovered their bodies.

“She (Saleesha) was still lying on her stomach like she was sleeping. She probably didn’t even know what was going on. I still wonder why anyone would do this to my husband and my child. He was a drinker but he always kept to himself. “More than a year later I haven’t gotten any updates into their murders. I was in close contact with the investigators up until their funerals then all of a sudden, I stopped getting calls.”

Joseph also says after the funeral she started receiving threatening messages from men claiming to be her husband’s killers. She says despite reports to the police, little has been done to ease her fears and says she left the village shortly after the funeral.

Joseph says her story is just one of many and says she is unconvinced that recent assurances from acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams and National Security Minister Edmund Dillon that increased police presence will yield any benefits. “They always say that but we don’t ever see any improvements. I don’t have the solution to crime but I know we have a lot of technology and resources that can be used to find murderers and stop these things from happening.

“It’s reached a point in this country now where you can’t even go outside your home now because you might be killed and if you are killed you can’t count on anyone to find your killers.”

Today, Joseph says the murders of her daughter and husband continue to haunt her and says their deaths are a constant reminder of how dangerous the country has become where even sleeping children can become the victims of crime.