A 14-year-old West Bank Demerara school girl has been missing since the first day of school.
Akeila Grimshaw, a student of the West Demerara Secondary was last seen about 03:30hrs by her mother, Marissa Grimshaw-Walcott at Vreed-en-Hoop.
Akeila lives at Parfaite Harmonie with her mother and father, Police Inspector Lingard Walcott along with an older sibling.
The mother, during a telephone interview with the News Room, explained what happened on the day she last saw her daughter.
“The Monday afternoon after school, I called her and told her I would pick her up at the Vreed-en-Hoop junction and she responded ‘okay she will be waiting there for me,’ but the traffic and the crowd there you could not get an easy parking, so I had to go way up the road and park,” the mother said.
According to the mother, while looking for parking, she was on the phone with her daughter who said she was going “over the road” to buy a slushy.
“I saw her walk across the road, we were talking on the phone, my phone was on speaker cause I was driving…she told me she going over the road and I said yes I am seeing you, I am going to park and we will walk back down to pick up your big sister by the stelling.”
It was the mother’s worst nightmare when she finally parked and walked to the gas station where she expected to find her daughter waiting, but she wasn’t there.
“I wait about 20 to 30 minutes, walked around in the crowd, went down to the stelling and came back to the gas station and ask some kids if they saw her, they said no and we never saw her again,” the mother said.
Calls to the teen’s cell phone went unanswered and the phone was subsequently turned off. Akeila was last seen in her school uniform – a green kimono and a white shirt.
After Akeila did not return home after 24 hours, the mother filed a missing person’s report at the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station.
The family is still continuing the search; the mother drives around West Demerara hoping to see her daughter, while the father searches in Georgetown.
Meanwhile, the mother said she is not aware of any problems the teen may have had and the family do not know if she ran away from home.
“We didn’t had any problems, she is well loved…but kids sometimes they have things inside they won’t tell you about.
“All I want is Akeila safe return, I would do anything, pay any amount to have her home back,” the mother said.
Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of Akeila Grimshaw is asked to contact her parents on 592-610-9722, 592-625-8088 or the nearest police station.
