Coreen Singh

“Whoever is out there and knows something, if you could please come forward and give us that closure that we so desperately need right now after so many losses,” Sharon pleaded outside of the family’s Kelley Street, Carapo home.

The first weekend of February 2018 may have started like any other, but didn’t end that way.

That Saturday, Singh, a supervisor, went to work at Xtra Foods Supermarket in Arima.

At around 4 pm, she returned home in a hurry. She had a shower then changed into fresh clothes, before leaving in her vehicle–a white Nissan Tiida.

“I just asked her where are you going in such a hurry? She was like, I’m going to the mall. I said, wow, you have to be meeting someone who has you smiling…I never saw her smile like that. She was so jolly,” Sharon remembered.

The following day, on Sunday morning, Singh was supposed to report for work but failed to do so.

With calls to her phone unanswered, a colleague called the family’s home to find out where she was. Alarmed, Sharon called relatives and friends to find out if they had seen her. They didn’t, so she made a police report.

“At the beginning, they weren’t taking it very seriously. But when they got into it and realised, well, it was serious, they started calling her phone and the last call they tried to trace it. It’s then they started to act on it,” Sharon said.

It wouldn’t take long for evidence to appear.

A family friend saw a vehicle resembling Singh’s burnt and discarded at Trantrill Road, St Augustine.

Sharon and her brother, Joey, went to check it out.

“I was thinking, please don’t let it be her. Please don’t let this be her car…A lot of vehicles were passing at that time. So, we tried putting the number plate together with our feet, only to find out that it was hers,” she said, starting to cry.

After that discovery, however, the leads went cold.

No eyewitnesses came forward.

While there are countless questions, there are, quite simply, no answers.

“It’s an emptiness that you can’t explain. Like a deep, dark pit. I don’t know what took place that day. All I know is that when she left here, she was so happy. I’ve never seen her that happy,” Sharon said.

When asked if Singh ever mentioned anything about feeling unsafe, Sharon hesitated.

“Not really…I’m not…you know…she was in an abusive relationship. But, she always showed you a bright front. She put up a front. She never really used to get down to details,” she said.

Sharon refused to speculate about any link between the abuse and her sister’s disappearance.

Given that the investigation is still ongoing, she said she couldn’t speak further on the issue.

“The police contact us from time to time and let us know the case will never be closed,” Sharon said.

As the family hopes and prays for good news, stories of bodies found across the country take their toll.

Not long after Singh’s car was found, police discovered a body in Caroni, but DNA testing determined that it wasn’t the Xtra Foods supervisor.

“It’s just not a nice feeling to know that every body you hear that they find, you wonder if it is Coreen. That brings back all the memories. It wakes up everything,” Sharon said.

“I did call and find out about the bodies found alongside Andrea Bharatt, but they said they have to send the bones away for testing in order to get back to us.”

As they wait for a telling piece of evidence or for an eyewitness to come forward, the Reyes family’s quest for closure continues.

All the while, someone out there knows something.

“This family has been so damaged by Coreen’s disappearance. Please have a heart, help us find her. Let her come home…I can’t wait to see her or hold her, and to just let her know how much we love her and miss her,” Sharon pleaded.