Tonight a single mother is desperately searching for her twelve year old son Jamal Samuels. The student of Unity Presbyterian Primary School left his godmother’s house for school on Friday and hasn’t returned. He was present for classes but after leaving school, he failed to return home and has not been back to school. What happened to Jamal Samuels after school on Friday, October sixteenth and where he may be tonight are questions that the family and police want answered. While there have been reports of the primary school student riding on a bicycle in the city no one has been able to locate him. Yes, Jamal Samuels did run away from home before, but it is the first time that he has stayed away for so long. Today his mother Helen Samuels, a sanitation worker visited our studios to appeal to her son and to anyone who may be assisting Jamal Samuels to have him return home.
Jacqueline Godwin,
“This must be very worrisome for you Helen, not knowing where Jamal may be. He has been missing since Friday and you’re saying while he has run away from home before, this is the longest he has stayed away. He was staying at his godmother’s house. Why?”
Helen Samuels, Mother of Missing Boy
“Because then I am a person working and I didn’t want him to stray because he just graduated from boot camp, from cadet, and I didn’t want him to stray. So to get him stable I left him with my comadre and I guess the strictness of she, because she is from school it is homework – you have to have your homework which she could help you with. And I guess the strictness which she got, he didn’t like it and that is why he went and thing like that. But I want to tell him to come home and whosoever has him, the encourage him out there, I the ask them to please send my pickney home because Jamal only 12 years old. He needs to be in school. Nothing is on the street for him which he wants, just violence and drugs and crime. I want him to come home. Please, whosoever have him home to please let them send him home for me because then it has me worrying because I don’t know which part he is. All I want is for them to send him home, whosoever has him hold, send him home.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“What do we know happened that Friday morning?”
Helen Samuels,
“He went to school good good one Friday morning. He eat and everything and gone to school. The teachers said he went to school good good one.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“But he never returned home?”
Helen Samuels
“No he didn’t return home. Jackie all whe I do is got hope and got faith and pray because only God knows where he is and he sees what he is doing so I asked him to shine his light and make him come back home to me. All I am doing is just praying and having faith in me that nothing nuh happen to him and see that he comes home safely.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
“If someone watching you tonight sees the picture of Jamal, knows where he is, this person can contact you where?”
Helen Samuels
“Everybody knows me so anybody who sees me on the street, everybody knows this dread yah. Once they know dah my pickney, I di ask anyone of them, whosoever know me, once they see him anywhere on the street just connive him and bring him to me. Everybody knows which part I deh. I work dah BML, they could contact BML and mek they deal with me because they will contact me.”
If you know the whereabouts of twelve year old Jamal Samuels contact his mother Helen Samuels at Belize Maintenance Limited or the nearest police station.
