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‘I see her hands in the air”…Boy recalls watching seven-year-old sister go down
Little Jayleena Titus hugged and kissed her mother Friday night and said, “Mommy, I love you” before she returned to her Second Street, Alberttown, Georgetown home where she lived with her father and two brothers.
A day later, someone called her mother, Onika Henry, at her workplace to tell her that Jayleema was believed to have drowned at the Kingston seawall, Georgetown, near the Marriott Hotel.
The seven-year-old girl had gone there Saturday afternoon on a fishing outing with her father, Richard Titus, her 10-year-old brother, Jason and a cousin.
According to reports, the children were playing in the water at around 17.30 hrs when Jayleema disappeared.
Both the police and coastguard ranks revisited the scene yesterday, but were unable to locate the body.
At the child’s home yesterday, her mother explained that while she doesn’t live with her daughter, she would make regular contact with the children and would visit them in the afternoons after work.
The woman noted that she was at work on Saturday when she received a call that her daughter had drowned at the seawall.
According to Ms. Henry, her husband would usually go to the seawalls to fish and the seven-year-old girl would cry if he did not take her.
Feared dead: Little Jayleena Titus
Onika Henry and her child
“She does want to go everywhere with her father. If he going right to the shop, she does want go.”
Recalling what transpired, Jayleema brother said that while his father was fishing, he and his cousin were playing in the water. He said that while his sister was also in the water, she was closer to land.
“Me and my cousin were playing in the water and my father called my sister and she went and when she come back, she come and put her hands around me and I take her back (to the shallow part) and I tell her not to come out back,” Jason Titus related.
He further noted that there was a boat close-by and he warned his sister about going close to it. “I went back with my cousin and we were playing and when I look back, I didn’t see my sister and after I start look around, I see her hands in the air so I send my cousin to call my father and I went to save her.”
Jason reportedly reached to his sister and tried to grab her but she bit his hands and when he let go for a second, she disappeared beneath the water.
“When I pull away my hand, I didn’t see her anymore and I search the water for her but she wasn’t there,” the sibling revealed while adding that he too almost drowned but managed to swim to safety.
The 10-year-old revealed that while he could swim a little, his sister cannot swim. The little girl was described as a loving child who was the “light” in her family. She was the smallest of four children.
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