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Dad keeps lookout for missing son

by Anesta Henry
3 min read
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Early this morning 48-year-old John Watson stood by the rocks at Queen’s Street Beach, Speightstown, St Peter, hoping to catch a sighting of his 19-year-old son Jerome Romario Edwards who went missing while at sea in the same area on Sunday evening.

Watching the choppy waters, Watson told Barbados TODAY he had been in that location for a while hoping and praying he spots his child’s body.

“It ain’t nothing I could do right now but just wait. I come searching hoping to find something, but nothing as yet,” a soft-spoken Watson said.

Edwards, of Gays, St Peter, went into the water at the northern beach around 2 p.m. with three male friends. According to a police report, the sea was choppy. Around 3:30 p.m., Edwards was reportedly exiting the water when a wave struck him and he did not resurface.

Several persons went searching for the young man, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The Marine Unit and Coast Guard arrived and carried out extensive searches that have so far yielded nothing. The search was called off after two hours last night due to poor lighting conditions.

Watson who was the first to return to the area, accompanied by his partner, said he was feeling helpless as any father would. The father said he was on his way home from work last evening when the oldest of his six children called him and asked if he had heard Edwards for the day.

“I told him no. He told me a friend of his called and told him something happened. As I was coming down the road I keep getting contacted by people who told me it is true. When I came last night I saw the people there and when I talked to the policemen they told me it was true,” he said.

Watson recalled hearing his son last Sunday when he was at Hope Road, St Lucy, spending time with his paternal grandmother along with other grands.

“He used to live with his grandmother but I never used to get no complaints. Not just saying so, but I never used to get no complaints for him. The only complaint is he would come in the house late, and that was about it.”

Watson, who noted the unfavourable sea conditions, also pointed out that it was not exactly a friendly place at this time.

“If ya’ll had come here earlier ya’ll would see how the sea is because right now the sea dropping. My estimation is that when the sea hit he, it strike he down and lick he in the sand. Then the sand will go into his nostrils and make him heavy.

“As I get to understand, they were actually out of the sea. Probably he and the other three guys were backing the sea and the waves come and hit them and lick them off their feet. The other three guys came back up and get rescued but he never came back up,” Watson indicated.

Watson said Edwards was accustomed to going to the sea on Sundays.

“But yesterday was an unfortunate day,” he said.

Edwards lost his mother to a battle with cancer last April.

And while Watson blinked to hold back his tears, his mother Wavenie Watson spoke of her grandchild who she described as a “really nice boy”.

“Jerome was really loving. He and his sisters come and stay here for two weeks with me then them went along back home. Them live with the grandmother in Gays. And then them call me and tell me that Jerome went to the sea and he ain’t come back,” a crying Wavenie said.

Jerome attended Boscobelle Primary and Coleridge & Parry School. He was studying mechanical engineering at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute (SJPI), and according to Watson, he recently received a job offer.

“So, it is hard. Just 19 years old,” the Six Men’s, St Peter resident said. (anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)

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