Relatives search for missing woman.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Newsday | Saturday, January 14 2012

Relatives of a missing 51-year-old Marabella mother, Ruth Rattan, have been searching for her all over Trinidad and Tobago for the past month.

They are hoping that Rattan is alive and they are urging her to contact them.

With tears rolling down his face yesterday, Rattan’s common-law husband, Clifton Motesingh, 45, said he last spoke to her on December 7, last year, when she telephoned him.

The couple lived at Union Road in Marabella together with their 11 year-old son Matthias. Motesingh said on December 3, he and his wife had a dispute over the withdrawal of $600 from his bank card. That day, she left and went to stay in Mayo Village, near Gasparillo, with relatives, he said.

Three days later Motesingh said his wife telephoned and told him she had visited the San Fernando General Hospital because of a swelling in her navel.

“That was the last day I heard her voice. Her mother and other relatives do not know what happened to her after that day. We are living together for 11 years. Our son is not asking much about it but I have to be strong for him. “She would never leave for so long without calling me or our son,” Motesingh said as he began to weep.

On December 11, police officers discovered a burnt unidentified body of a female on Petrotrin’s Pointe-a- Pierre compound.

“Ruth’s mother gave a DNA sample to see if it was her daughter. I am hoping and praying it is not her.

“We cannot lose her, our boy is so young to be without a mother. I never told her to go and I am begging for her to come home,” Motesing said yesterday.

Investigators at the Marabella Police Station yesterday confirmed a missing person’s report for Rattan.

They also confirmed samples of relatives’ DNA were taken for testing to be done abroad because the technology was not available locally. The results would be available within the next two months, investigators said.

Persons with any information about Rattan’s whereabouts can contact the nearest police station or Marabella Police Station at 652- 6777.