THREE ST MICHAEL MEN reported missing three weeks ago are now feared dead.
DAILY NATION investigations revealed the men might have perished at sea while on a trip to St Vincent.The three are John Anderson Small also known as “Surf”, 40, of Railway Road, Carrington Village; Rommel Lindo “Shark” Martindale, 28, of Bridge Gap, Carrington Village; and Brian Allan Eric Dowridge, 32, of St Stephen’s Hill, Black Rock.
According to reports, the men left Barbados in an unregistered boat early January on an unknown expedition. Family members told the DAILY NATION yesterday they had been hoping and praying for the safe return of their loved ones, but reports reaching them indicated the three might have met some unfortunate tragedy.
One of Small’s sisters, Patricia Padmore, of Campaign Land, Martindales Road, St Michael, said her brother went to the beach “religiously every morning” and he would normally visit her before or after his seabath. With tears streaming down her face, Padmore, a newspaper vendor, said she heard from “somefellahs in the Village” that her brother had met some unfortunate circumstances at sea with two other Barbadians.
“They even tell me that their bodies washed up off St Lucia,” she said sobbing.
Martindale’s mother said she was still keeping her hopes alive despite the many negative reports about the fate of her son.
“The last time I see him was on January 4 when he left home about foreday morning,” she recalled.“I heard that he and three fellahs went out on a boat; but all I am hoping that he might be somewhere still alive,” she added. Sylvia Dowridge is at her wits’ end as to the truth about the disappearance of her son, who works with a private company at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA).
She said she had heard of her son being involved in fishing, but realised something was wrong when he did not show up for work at the airport on January 13.Both Dowridge and Martindale are reported to have made desperate phone calls to Barbados indicating that something had gone wrong while out to sea.Head of the police’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), Senior Superintendent Haskell Bynoe, said yesterday lawmen were investigating the circumstances of the disappearance.
