Limb suspected to be missing Mahdia miner’s found

Jul 22, 2016 News

-two still in custody

The search for missing miner Shawn Clarke took a gruesome turn yesterday, after police

Shawn Clarke and his wife Rachael.

found a decomposing limb that is suspected to be from the body of the 47-year-old.
A police official said that what appeared to be a left arm, and some human bones, were found near a trail between Mahdia and Konawaruk.
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum disclosed that ranks from the Major Crimes Unit are now working with their colleagues from F Division, in an effort to locate the rest of the remains.
Police have received reports that a body that might be Clarke’s was spotted at Mahdia on Tuesday, but searches by detectives revealed no trace of the ‘corpse’ or any of his belongings.
Meanwhile, detectives continued to interrogate two miners who may have knowledge of Clarke’s fate.
One of the suspects is said to have fathered a child with a female acquaintance of Clarke’s, who is currently pregnant.
Police suspect that there might have been some animosity between the two men.
Among the detained is an individual called ‘Marlon’, who was allegedly last seen with Clarke at North Fork, Mahdia.
Clarke left his Lot ‘C’ Norton Street, Lodge home on June 15 for North Fork, where he had been working as a gold miner for over 20 years. His wife and daughter were told that his body was later seen in the area, but someone moved the remains. They were also told that some of Clarke’s belongings were burnt and that maggots were seen at the spot from which the corpse had been shifted.
However, his wife, Rachael Clarke, had suspected that something was amiss after he failed to answer several calls on July 10. She had spoken to her husband at around 06:00hrs that day in relation to some items she had sent to the interior for him with a bus.
Relatives believe that Clarke had headed to the bus for the package. He reportedly called the driver at around 20:45 hrs to say he was coming out from North Fork to Mahdia.
“That’s the last time the bus man heard from him,” Mrs. Clarke said.
After calling her husband on July 12 and getting no response, she called the same driver who said that her husband had not come to collect anything.
The woman related that she began enquiring from some of her husband’s friends in the interior about his whereabouts. She was told that her husband and a man named “Marlon” had left North Fork and walked to another back dam. “They (Marlon and her husband) were seen there and then they were heading to Mahdia. That was the last time somebody saw my husband alive.”