Basseterre, St. Kitts - Police Press and Public Relations Officer, Inspector Cromwell Henry remembers scouring the mountains from Frigate Bay to Conaree for one week in March 1985.
Inspector Henry, who was then a student at Basseterre Junior High School, did this all for his geography teacher.
This was not some geography field exercise his teacher had organized for students to familiarize themselves with handling surveying equipment. If it were merely that, Inspector Henry probably would not be able to recall the expedition as clearly as he does now.
After all, it was 24 years ago.
But the fact that he – along with practically the whole student body of Basseterre Junior High School – was searching for his missing 19-year-old geography teacher Renée Farrier is a vivid memory, which has stayed with him.
“It was almost daily,” said Inspector Henry. “Apparently, some classes would go in the morning and others would go in the afternoon. I do recall my searches were in the afternoon. School would end early and we would try to get to the hillsides early to search the entire area. I could recall doing that for a whole week. Every afternoon, we would pick up where we left off the day before and search the entire mountainside, but to no avail.”
He added that, “Some skeletal remains were found in the Conaree area eventually, but I do not know if they were determined to be hers.”
There is no death recorded for Renée in the registry at the Basseterre Health Centre.
Who was Renée Farrier?
Renée would have turned 44 on June 18, had she not disappeared into thin air; the prevailing thought is that she is dead.
Not only was Renée a striking beauty, she had a brilliant mind. She earned nine G.C.E. O-level subjects, which included English, Math, Biology, Chemistry, Geography and Fashion and Dress Designing, according to a report in The Labour Spokesman. The newspaper said Renée was also a skilled typist.
Her mother’s only child, Renée was born in Dieppe Bay to Mrs. Winifred Farrier-Lewis, but in 1985 the two of them were living on George Street in Newtown.
David Lake, who lived nearby, described her as being “very reclusive.” “She didn’t have many friends,” he said, adding that, “Her family moved sometime after [her disappearance].”
Have you seen her?
Both the Saturday, March 30, 1985 editions of The Democrat and The Labour Spokesman Newspapers published a photo of the beautiful, young teacher on their front page as well as a story about her Friday, March 22 disappearance.
In The Democrat photo, the curly-haired beauty posed askance at the camera and smiled, but barely; her teeth stayed out of view behind full lips. In The Labour Spokesman, she did not give a sideways glance. Instead, she looked at the camera head-on, without a hint of a smile, as if posing for a passport picture.
The Democrat ran the caption "Have you seen her?" above her photo. The story read: “The above photograph is that of an attractive 19-year-old School teacher, named Renee Farier [sic] of New Town, Basseterre, whose disapperence [sic] since last week Friday, is causing much concern to her family and the general public here in St. Kitts.
“Despite extensive searches made by the Police, Voluntary Defence Force, and other concerned organisations, there has been no trace at all of the missing young lady, according to Police Commissioner Stanley Franks.
“We are reliably informed that Renee [sic] wrote a letter to a friend which was delivered the same day she disappeared.”
The Labour Spokesman reported that, “A Geography teacher at the Basseterre Junior High School for the past two years, Renée left home last week Friday morning at 8:15 o’ clock, dressed for school. However she did not report for work either in the morning or in the afternoon. Neither did she return home later that evening.
“As a consequence a report was later made to the police by Renée’s mother, Mrs. Winifred Farrier-Lewis, who is the only other occupant of their home on George Street.
“She was reported seen getting off a passenger-bus on the morning in question somewhere in Conaree Village, some two miles out of Basseterre.
“She was next seen on Sunday in the vicinity of Conaree beach by a pupil of the school who reported the matter to the police.
“On Monday morning this week, members of the Basseterre Junior High School staff along with a number of students there journeyed to Conaree and carried out an extensive search in the area, but in vain.
“Later in the day, contingents of military personnel from the Royal St. Christopher-Nevis Police Force, the Defence Force and the Cadet Corps mounted a search party and combed the area, but in vain.
“Since then the Police have continued their search for her – extending the search to other areas including Friars Bay, on the Southern Peninsula, where she was reported last seen on Wednesday by a fisherman.”
Three females went missing in span of five months
The prevailing thought back then was that Renée left on her own volition after a romantic relationship unravelled.
Inspector Henry said that, “The rumours were that her disappearance had to do with something that went wrong in her relationship with the guy. I don’t know how true it was, but it had something to do with the guy who had apparently disappointed her."
In response to, “But there wasn’t any proof of that was there?” Inspector Henry said “no.”
A 41-year-old employee of the Basseterre Health Centre, who does not want her name used in this story, knew Renée as an acquaintance. She has strong opinions on what might have happened.
“I don’t think that it’s foul play,” she said. “Some of us love strong and love will make us do anything. But Renée wouldn’t have gone and killed herself. I’m sure Renée must be somewhere. I don’t think she got lost. Renée is very smart, you know. Renée is so intelligent.”
She added that, “I was wondering why Renée went missing. I was wondering what happened, but I heard everybody saying that her head must be gone.”
On the face of it, this would be an easy thing to believe; that Renée’s head was “gone” aka “pul” or “para” over love.
But to a reporter – who was only seven years old at the time and not caught up in the rumour mill surrounding Renée’s disappearance – the sight of another report with the headline "Skeleton and corpse found," which appeared directly under the Saturday, March 30 Labour Spokesman story about her, is eerie, to say the least.
The report read: “In the meantime the Police on Tuesday afternoon unearthed a skeleton believed to be that of a female adult who was reported missing since October of last year. The necessary lab tests are being carried out to establish a firm identity of the person.”
Looking back through The Democrat and The Labour Spokesman archives for October 1984 through December 1984, I found no reference to a missing woman.
What I found, though, suggested an unnerving trend. Between October 1984 and March 1985 – a span of five months – there were three cases of missing females reported in the newspapers. Remember, too, that news of the woman who went missing in October 1984 was not published by a newspaper until skeletal remains were found five months later.
On Wednesday, November 28, 1984, The Labour Spokesman published this headline on its front page: Missing 3-year-old girl found dead on Middle Island Bay: Man charged with murder.
The Labour Spokesman reported that, “Little Zandra and her 5-year-old brother had been left alone in the house on Saturday night. The mother reported she had gone to a nearby house to visit a friend. On her return late that night the little girl was missing. She reported the matter immediately to the police.”
According to The Labour Spokesman, the police mounted a thorough hunt and found the girl dead on a beach around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 25. The newspaper story reported that the police charged a young Middle Island man with her murder.
Crime of opportunity?
We will never know what happened to Renée. The only truth I found emerged from fragments of her students’ memories.
Inspector Cromwell Henry said, “I could recall her as being very attractive. She was very quiet. She didn’t socialize much. You would only see her on her way to school or at school.”
He added matter-of-factly, “I guess she was very much liked for her prettiness by the students. I think that was a distraction to us.”
Another woman who works at the Basseterre Health Centre was a student of Renée’s. She, too, does not want to be named. She said that, “She was a very good teacher. She was very strict, too. She wanted a neat book. You know those times we used to use Wite-Out? We couldn’t use any of that in our book. We had to put a line through it and mark ‘Omit.’ That’s how she used to deal with us.”
The other woman who works at the health centre, whom I quoted earlier, speculates that, “I’m sure she wanted marriage, that’s why [she disappeared]. I believe is marriage she wanted.”
This is the profile of Renée that I found during my reporting: she was a 19-year-old woman with not only an awesome beauty, but she had remarkable discipline, a penchant for being a loner and nine G.C.E. O-levels.
Yes, practically every woman her age dreams of getting married. But she had the whole world ahead of her.
Was it that Renée did not appreciate where she stood in the world viewed from a myopic perspective of a lovelorn 19-year-old? Or, did Renée’s well-known tendency to be alone make her an easy target for someone; an obsessed stalker, perhaps?
Inspector Cromwell Henry admits that someone like Renée, who was an attractive loner, can be an easy target because abduction is a crime of opportunity.
He offers some advice: “Avoid being alone in isolated areas and dark areas. If you are going out, stay in well-lit areas where other persons are as much as possible, if you cannot be accompanied. Avoid travelling the same route to your living quarters. Do not take rides from persons whom you do not know. Train your child not to talk to strangers. Do not allow your child to go out alone.”
Referring to the period between October 1984 and March 1985, Inspector Henry said that, “It’s surprising to me that there were so many missing persons in such a short span.”
However, he assured that, “It’s not really prevalent now.”
About the situation here in St. Kitts and Nevis, Inspector Henry added that, “Most times when a person is missing, they are found alive. It is very rare that a missing person is found dead.”
This raised the question: “Do the police compile missing person statistics?” After conferring with the Statistics and Criminal Investigation Departments, Inspector Henry told SKNVibes that, “It doesn’t seem so.”
