In St Kitts news, the mother of 17-year-old Dylon Clarke feels she will never get justice for the son she fears was murdered last year.
Speaking exclusively with The Observer Evette Clarke said that she hopes for justice for her son “but it doesn’t seem I will ever get it”. She confessed that she feels Dylon is dead; killed by someone he considered a good friend.
The distraught mother said she still has not heard anything from the police in connection to her son’s disappearance and she has questioned officers about their investigations.
“Wait until the persons fall out and they come in and talk to the police they (the police) tell me but when that will be?” she said.
Dylon Clarke
courtesy of The St Kitts & Nevis Observer
Dylon told his mother on the afternoon of April 28, 2012 that he was going over to his “friend’s house” and walked out of his Church Ground home and never returned. The teen was wearing a yellow polo shirt, a jean pants and a pair of black Nike slippers.
On April 29 the family filed a missing person report and an island wide search was launched. Search and Rescue officers and volunteers searched for days for the missing teen but to no avail. In May two USVI Police Tactical Unit officers from the K9 department arrived on Nevis with their cadaver dog.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Robert Liburd confirmed that the dog detected the scent of a dead body on the property of a Cane Garden resident who was at the time the prime suspect in Dylon’s disappearance.
The property where the dog twice alerted police to the scent of human decomposition is the residence of Dylon’s friend whom he said he went to visit on the day he disappeared. Equipment was used to dig in the area however no remains were found.
In December 2011 the Cane Garden resident was charged with the stabbing death of Zamique Heyliger. The Observer understands Dylon gave a statement in front of police officers and his mother, implicating the same friend.
That statement was handed over to the suspect’s lawyer. The suspect was charged with murder and much to the shock and disbelief of many Nevisians and Heyliger’s relatives, he was released on bail days later. The details and conditions of his bail were never released to the public.
“I thought no one would have seen my son’s statement until they reach into court but the officer told me they had to hand it over to the boy’s lawyer so the boy was able to see what Dylon said.
“Look how my son left me that Saturday and walk himself right into that boy hands. He left home not knowing he was going for them to kill him,” she charged.
Police Commissioner CG Walwyn had declared the suspect had no motive for killing Dylon because he [Dylon] had refused to testify against him in court.
Courtsey of the West Indies News Network Police Commissioner CG Walwyn
The Observer understands that Clarke’s statement cannot be used in court under the Evidence Act of 2012 which allows for witness statements to be entered as evidence.
According to police sources Dylon’s statement could only be used if he is proven or presumed dead. The Police Public Relations Officer Inspector Lyndon David told The Observer that he was not sure as to the exact time the law gives for a missing person to be presumed dead but he knows it is approximately seven years or more.
Clarke said that she warned her son many times to stay away from the Cane Garden resident.
“I use to tell my son keep them out of my house and don’t bring them here but he wouldn’t listen. I told him keep far from him but he said that nobody wants to be the boy’s friend. I cautioned him and told him to stop keeping company with him,” she lamented.
Clarke said that the pain of thinking about what happened to her son hinders her from a full sleep at night.
“Even now at night time I still can’t get a good sleep, wondering what they did with him. My mind always runs off on him.”
With the heartbreak of not knowing what happened to her son Clarke reassures herself that someday the truth about what happened to Dylon would be revealed. Meanwhile the prime suspect remains ‘free’, still out on bail for Heyliger’s murder.
“One day it will come to the light what happened to my son. What happens in the dark must come in the light.”
By Monique Washington from The St Kitts & Nevis Observer
