‘Send $200 for the truth’: 25 years after disappearance of girls, family seeks closure

By Kurt Campbell

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It’s been a quarter-century since 13-year-old Deniese Hariman went missing, but her family is still holding on to hope that they’ll find the answers they desperately need.

Last Sunday, October 06, family and friends gathered for a candlelight vigil in Queens, New York, to mark the 25th anniversary of the disappearance of Deniese and her close friend, Chauvian Sankar.

Both girls vanished within months of each other, their fates intertwined with the unsettling presence of a man, Rudolph Balgobin, who has long been a suspect:

Now, serving 25 years in a Florida state prison for another murder, Balgobin has been linked to the disappearances of both girls and their families are calling for the details of the truth to finally come to light.

The vigil marked not only the memory of two young lives lost but also a renewed plea for justice.

Deniese’s mother, Seeta Beran, covering her eyes heavy with sorrow but filled with hope, addressed the crowd.

“I got a letter from him. Two letters, in fact. Stating that I should send him $200 and he will tell me what he know,”she said, speaking of Balgobin, who, despite serving time for another crime, still holds the key to what happened to Deniese and Chauvian.

Hariman was only five years old when she immigrated from Albouystown, Guyana, to the United States, where she grew up in Richmond Hill, Queens. Her life, like so many others, was full of promise.

But on the afternoon of October 6th, 1999, Deniese went missing on her way home from school. It was the last time anyone saw her.

Sankar, Deniese’s neighbour and close friend, vanished nearly a year later. The two girls had been inseparable, often spending time together.

Sankar’s then-boyfriend, Balgobin, was known to have spent time with both girls, reportedly taking them out for ice creams and even walking them home from time to time.

He was in his 20s at the time, while Deniese and Chauvian were teenagers.

But what seemed innocent at first quickly turned into suspicion. The disappearance of Chauvian in 2000 led the Hariman family to question Balgobin’s involvement.

Natasha Beran, Deniese’s sister, shared her family’s anguish during the vigil.

“We are 99.99% sure he had something to do with it,” she said.

“We just need him to admit the truth, to give us the closure we deserve. He wouldn’t say anything when they asked him before, but now, he’s the only one who knows what really happened to my sister and Chauvian.”

Natasha described how the past 25 years have profoundly affected the family.

“It’s been tough,” she said. “We had to move forward, but we never stopped thinking about them. Our lives changed that day, and we didn’t even realise how much.”

For Seeta, the agony of not knowing what happened to her daughter has been nearly unbearable. “I try to be strong,” she says. “But the pain is always there. I keep hoping that one day someone will speak the truth.”