It has been almost three years since Marlon Brando Smith reportedly escaped police custody. He has not been heard from or seen since.
Marlon Smith has not been seen since September, 2016.
And his girlfriend Keisha Bispham is demanding some answers.
In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, Bispham, the mother of Smith’s four children, said she had not received any information from police regarding the disappearance of her boyfriend.
She recalled that she had last seen the then 37-year-old Smith on September 7, 2016, two days before police reported that he had escaped custody while being questioned in connection with a serious matter.
Keisha Bispham (left) and three of her four children want answers on the wherabouts of Marlon Smith.
Bispham said she strongly believed her boyfriend would never be found because he was dead.
To make matters worse, she said while police had described Smith as being armed and dangerous there had been seemingly little effort by them to locate him.
“The last time I saw him was September 7 and I have not heard from Marlon or seen him since,” Bispham said, as she stood outside her Storey Gap, Codrington Hill, St Michael residence this afternoon.
“If they saying he so armed and dangerous why them ain’t come back looking for him?
“All they saying is that he this place and that place and the third place. But if he at them places why they don’t just go for he?” she questioned.
The last wanted notice posted by the Royal Barbados Police Force in connection with Smith was released on October 26, 2016, just over one month after he was last seen alive.
She said his sudden disappearance had left her to raise their four children, who range in age from six to 19, on her own.
“We alive, that’s all I could say,” was Bispham’s brief response when asked how the family was coping without Smith.
She said Smith’s attorney-at-law Queen’s Counsel Andrew Pilgrim had gone as far as to write a letter to the then Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite when the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was in office, but had received no response.
Pilgrim told Barbados TODAY that he too was beginning to lose hope that his client would be found.
He said the circumstances under which he went missing and the subsequent behaviour by police raised several alarms.
“I am totally perplexed by this situation in that the RBPF is asking the public of Barbados to believe that an armed and dangerous man escaped from them after being in custody on a murder investigation and they have essentially made absolutely no effort whatsoever to find him,” Pilgrim said.
“Moreover, they have not tried to get the courts to pursue the sureties who signed bail on behalf of this man, who they say is at large and they have failed to respond to any correspondence that I have sent them asking to explain the circumstances in which this man went missing.
“Tell us something. Pretend that you know more than what the family has already decided that they believe . . . but they’re not saying anything, they’re not responding . . . I don’t hold out much hope,” the outspoken lawyer explained.
When contacted police public relations officer Inspector Rodney Inniss told Barbados TODAY that law enforcement was still actively looking for Smith.
“Once a person is on the police’s wanted or missing lists we are always looking for them,” Inniss said.
He also encouraged Smith’s family to have an audience with the police if they had questions which they needed answered.
However, he was unable to comment when asked if police had received any recent information regarding Smith’s whereabouts.
Inniss explained that he did not have that information to hand and therefore was not in a position to speak on that matter. randybennett@barbadostoday.bb
