A frantic search for 48-year-old Jassodra Baksh ended in tragedy yesterday when her family were called in to identify her body at the Forensic Science Centre in St James. Baksh, a mother of two, of Waterloo Road, Carapichaima, turned out to be the unidentified woman discovered in a drain in an abandoned cane field at Orange Valley, Couva, on Tuesday. Her body was identified by her husband, Fareed Baksh, and their son Ronald, after they went to the Freeport Police Station on Tuesday night to report her missing.
A 26-year-old man from Korea Village, Carapichaima, was taken into custody for questioning. An autopsy by forensic pathologist Dr Valerie Alexandrov yesterday concluded that Baksh, a janitor at Royal Bank, Chaguanas, died from manual strangulation. Alexandrov said an examination revealed a fractured trachea and fingernail marks on the neck.
Police are working with the theory that Baksh was abducted outside Royal Bank in Couva. They said eyewitnesses saw her in the arms of a man in the backseat of a Nissan AD Wagon. She looked to be unconscious. Baksh’s body was discovered shortly afterwards in a drain by a group of men who were hunting crabs.
Her son Ronald said his mother left home around 10 am on Tuesday to go to the bank and while he was at school around 1 pm, he got a phone call from an aunt saying his mother could not be reached. He said when he called her phone it immediately went to voicemail.
He said when he went home, his father told him his mother had not come home from the bank, nor had she gone to work.
Ronald said they became worried since Baksh had never stayed away from home before. It was only when they went to the Freeport Police Station with a photo to make a missing persons report that they were asked to go to the Forensic Science Centre.