Mom facing sleepless nights after 13-y-o daughter goes missing

When Heidi-Ann Williams and her teen daughter struck up a conversation while they made dinner at the family’s Clarendon home last Sunday, there was no sign of the looming heartache.

Zaynah Shaw, 13, a grade-eight student at Glenmuir High School, also in Clarendon, aced her last round of exams with 10 As and two Cs and wanted her mother to be present when she collected her report card on April 17.

“She told me, ‘Mommy, you must dress up and come up a school next week, because the 17th is report day,’” Williams recounted.

However, hours later, Zaynah vanished from her room without a trace. She was still missing up to late yesterday.

Williams said she discovered the 13-year-old missing shortly after 6 a.m. on Monday, when she went to her room to wake her up for school and she was not there, setting off a frantic search.

“I went back to my room and she wasn’t there, so I searched out the house, the entire yard and over the car wash (she operates), and still didn’t see her,” the distraught mother recounted.

“It is a mother’s worst nightmare. It is tough, it is hard not knowing where your child is,” she added, noting that Zaynah is a very good child.

Williams said she noticed that Zaynah’s book bag and school uniform, including a pair of socks, were still hanging on the clothesline outside.

“I think maybe she went outside to take up the clothes and something happened. My daughter did not run away,” she said.

But Williams said she heard “absolutely” nothing and saw no sign of what befell her daughter, who had big dreams of becoming an airline pilot.

“It feels very frustrating. Since Monday, I haven’t slept since Monday. You know when you get a little doze and then you just jump up back? Right now, me nerves a badda me,” she said.

A total of 11,377 children – including 9,023 girls - have been reported missing in Jamaica over the eight-year period between 2016 and last year, according to statistics compiled by the police and shared with The Gleaner.

Some 2,441, including 1,972 girls, remain missing, while 8,902 – 7,035 girls among them – have been reunited with their families, the data revealed.

Thirty-three – 18 boys and 15 girls – were found dead.

There has been a steady decline in the number of children reported missing between 2016 and last year, a breakdown of the data shows.

In 2016, a total of 1,725 children, including 1,317 girls, were reported missing. A year later, that number dipped to 1,674, of which there were 1,311 girls.

But for the last four calendar years, starting in 2021, the numbers dipped to 893; 952; 1,003 and 1,011, respectively.

Williams said her last interaction with Zaynah was just before the 13-year-old retired to bed on Sunday, when she gave her her lunch money and promised to comb her hair the following morning.

“I did not see any sign that she was having trouble in the home, no sign of running away ... nothing like that,” she insisted.

Williams said she and her family are awaiting word from the Clarendon police, who have launched an investigation into the disappearance.

Calls to Senior Superintendent Shane McCalla, commanding officer for the Clarendon police, went unanswered yesterday.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com