The search team looking for a man missing since Saturday, instead stumbled on the decaying body of a woman, dumped on the roadside along a forest road in Tabaquite yesterday.
So ended the hunt for Margaret Constantine, 53, a taxi-driver who vanished on Independence Day after dropping off a passenger in Chaguanas.
But last night, the increasingly desperate search for 26-year-old Shane Sampath continued. He left his Todd's Road, Talparo, home to visit a friend in a neighbouring village and disappeared.
His station wagon has not been found. He has left behind a grieving fiancee, parents, a brother and sister.
It was Sampath's brother and uncles who followed circling corbeaux to Charuma Road-a gravel track off the Tabaquite Road, and found Constantine.
She had been gagged, her hands were tied, and she might have been strangled, investigators said.
Her killers committed a final indignity-they dumped garbage on her body.
Constantine's husband, Dexter Cooper, had made a public appeal on Wednesday for information that could lead to his wife of five years.
Constantine lived with Cooper in Marabella.
She worked for a taxi agency and got a job Monday night to pick up a woman in Port of Spain and drop her off in Chaguanas.
The woman told police Constantine dropped her in Chaguanas that night. It is believed Constantine might have then picked up her killers, who pretended to be passengers.
Dexter Cooper said that night he turned in bed, realised his wife was not at his side, and panicked.
Her body was found at 11 a.m. yesterday, but police said she died the night she disappeared.
Her brother-in-law, Trevor Cooper, said: "The people who found her got the number from the newspaper and told us. We came up here thinking it was a hoax but still wanting to make sure."
When Dexter Cooper learned from police that his wife was dead, he collapsed.
"Oh God, let me see her, let me see my beloved," he screamed.
Constantine worked for the past year with Trincity-based Caribbean Limo and Cab Services, and also plied a taxi owned by businessman Nirmal Gosine.
The taxi, a white B-15 Sentra, has not been found.
In the case of Sampath, his mother Lolita Sampath begged the nation last night for help to find her child.
Sampath, a construction worker, left his friend's home at 6 p.m. on Saturday and vanished.
His mother said ,"While looking for him, our search party found the body of a woman. It was a terrible thing to see. We called the police."
She said of her son: "I know he is being held somewhere because he would have returned home.
"I cannot lose hope. If I break down, so will my children. I must show courage so they can have the courage to continue the search. I am hoping for a happy ending."
Anyone with information can call any police station or the family at 672-2578.
