Family outraged over Keithisha's death: Solve this case

FOUND DEAD: Police confirmed that the body found in the Heights of Aripo was that of missing Cocorite woman Keithisha Cudjoe who disappeared on January 24. PHOTO COURTESY TTPS -
FOUND DEAD: Police confirmed that the body found in the Heights of Aripo was that of missing Cocorite woman Keithisha Cudjoe who disappeared on January 24. PHOTO COURTESY TTPS -

JENSEN LA VENDE and SHANE SUPERVILLE

KEITHISHA CUDJOE was a fighter, a relative of the deceased woman told Newsday on Wednesday as she imagined the 21-year-old’s last moments.

Cudjoe, originally of Covigne Road, Diego Martin lived at Harding Place, Cocorite and was last seen alive on January 24.

Her semi-nude decomposing body was found in the Heights of Aripo on January 28 and positively identified on Tuesday.

The female relative, who asked not to be named, said Cudjoe, an attendant at a gas station in El Socorro, was supposedly dropped off in Port of Spain at about 7 pm last Monday after liming with friends in Belmont. She was told that the friends had organised a driver to take Cudjoe to the city. Next time she was seen was when her body was found.

“She was a fighter. I can’t imagine what she went through. As a child she used to get seizures. I could only imagine what her last moments were,” the relative said as she began crying.

“The maths not mathsing. If she was your friend and you didn’t see her home for days – why not go to the police? Knowing how the world is, you don’t wait this long to report someone missing. Instead you play police and was searching for her?”

The woman added that Cudjoe’s three-year-old son has been asking for his mother but no one knows how to tell him she died.

“She lived for that child,” she said.

The woman said Cudjoe was a very loving person and would lighten the mood by “talking nonsense and laughing hard.”

She had a message for the police: “I need them to solve this case – this is not a want but a need. Show me allyuh does solve crime.”

Newsday visited Cudjoe's neighbourhood in Harding Place, Cocorite, on Wednesday and spoke with residents who said the news of her death have left them shaken as she was a well-known and loved young member of their community.

One woman said while Cudjoe moved to the area from Diego Martin only two years ago, she was known and liked by other residents.

"I accustomed seeing her around here. She was always pleasant to speak to and talk with. I just remember seeing her going to work on mornings, only occasionally I would see her going out.

"I really hoped there could have been a happier ending to all of this, when we heard she had gone missing. We as residents even thought of coming together to help look for her."

Another woman who asked to be identified only as Christine, said Cudjoe's death was particularly frightening as she has a daughter the same age.

"My daughter goes to UWI and she doesn't drive so she has to travel a lot of times. So when I read things like these it makes my stomach turn. It's not an easy thing having a girl child these days. You do everything to keep them safe."

One man said he hoped the police could find those responsible for Cudjoe's murder and called on men to do better and respect women and their boundaries.

He said while he did not know Cudjoe personally, he wanted to extend condolences to her family.

"I don't know why some of us men can't understand to leave women alone. Now a family has to go without a daughter, and a child without its mother.

"I feel it's to just tie up these fellas from a tree and let the ants deal with them, it might sound harsh, but I don't care. This has been going on too often now."

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