The spiritualist’s missing guest

Mar 13, 2016 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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By Michael Jordan

If there is one mother who has a right to be worried about the fate of a missing daughter, that woman is Joylyn Brotherson.
And you would be worried, too, if your daughter had vanished without a trace, and if she had once lived at the home of a female friend, who turned out to be a murderess.
Mrs. Brotherson’s daughter, June Ann Davis, disappeared in 1999, when she was just 18.
Mrs. Brotherson fears that an infamous, empty lot in Second Street, Alberttown, Georgetown, may hold the answers to the fate of her missing child.
You see, the body of another woman was dug up in that same lot.
It was in July 1999, that Joylyn Brotherson went for a five-month stay in St. Maarten, leaving her then 18-year-old daughter, June Ann, and other siblings at the family’s Lot 306 West Ruimveldt home.
Mrs. Brotherson returned from St. Maarten in December, and was upset to learn that June Ann had moved out.
She was told that her daughter was living at the Lot 14, Second Street, Alberttown home of a female acquaintance.
Mrs. Brotherson decided to check on her daughter.
The woman with whom June Ann was said to be staying was a self-proclaimed spiritualist named Patricia Alves.
‘Mother’ Alves’ home was always spotlessly clean. The boards leading from the gate to her front steps—and the steps themselves—were scrubbed white.

This work was done by ‘Mother’ Alves, and by female guests who sometimes sought lodging at the home of the ‘spiritualist’.
One of these women was Monica Reece, who would eventually be brutally murdered in Main Street on Good Friday of 1992.
But when Joylyn Brotherson arrived at the property, ‘Mother’ Alves informed her that June Ann had taken ‘Sabbath’ there and left.
Mrs. Brotherson retuned a few more times to ‘Mother’ Alves’ home. According to her, ‘Mother’ Alves always had a different story about her daughter’s whereabouts.
Once, she was told that June Ann had just left. Another time, ‘Mother’ Alves reportedly told her that June Ann was in Suriname. Joylyn Brotherson didn’t believe that her daughter was in Suriname, since she had all of June Ann’s travel documents.
At the time, though, she wasn’t unduly worried, either. After all, she thought, “she’s big enough, and maybe she wants to see how the world stay.”
But some time later, she learned that a male acquaintance of her daughter’s had been charged with murdering a woman.
Like June Ann, that male acquaintance had once stayed at ‘Mother’ Alves’ home.
The man was eventually freed of the murder charge, but Mrs. Brotherson suspected that the man might have also killed June Ann.
She expressed her suspicions to the police, who re-arrested the suspect and questioned him about June Ann. However, they were forced to release him after finding no evidence to link him to the teen’s disappearance.
But that was not the end of the matter.
On February 14, 2002, residents of Second Street, Alberttown, were shocked to learn that police had dug up a woman’s decomposing body from ‘Mother’ Alves’ backyard.
The body was that of 32-year-old Camille Sibnauth, of Anna Regina, Essequibo. She had been badly beaten and had suffered a fractured skull.
The police had been tipped off after one of ‘Mother’ Alves’ neighbours peeped through a fence and saw the ‘spiritualist’ burying Sibnauth’s body in a shallow grave.
The investigators learned that Sibnauth had stayed at ‘Mother’ Alves’ home for several months. Witnesses would later inform detectives that Sibnauth was often beaten.
The discovery of Sibnauth’s body aroused fresh fears in Joylyn Brotherson about her daughter’s fate.
She became even more concerned when some Alberttown residents claimed that her daughter was sometimes subjected to similar beatings as Sibnauth.
Again, Mrs. Brotherson visited the police. This time, she pleaded with them to dig up ‘Mother’ Alves’ backyard, just in case her daughter was also buried there.
But to her dismay, those pleas went unheeded.
Patricia Alves served a ten-year sentence for the murder of Camille Sibnauth. She was freed, only to be faced with a charge of attempted murder, allegedly following a failed ‘exorcism’, just last year.
Prior to that, a mystery fire razed her home.
The last time I spoke with her, Joylyn Brotherson continues to hope that her daughter has escaped a similar fate as Camille Sibnauth, and that ‘Mother’ Alves’ backyard holds no more secrets.
“I would be really glad to see my child, even if she is living another life,” she told me.
“I just want to touch her and hear her say: ‘Mommy, I am alright…’ “

If you have any information on the whereabouts of June Ann Davis, please contact Mrs. Joylyn Brotherson at Lot 306 West Ruimveldt Housing Scheme, or on telephone number 223-2822.
You can also contact us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street address, or on telephone numbers 22-58473, 22-58458, or 22-58491.
You can also contact Michael Jordan on his email address [email protected]

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