Mentally ill father disappears with kids - Grandmother wants help to find grandchildren

Joan Wheatley, a 59-year-old grandmother from Jones Town in central Kingston, is seeking the public's assistance to locate her five-year-old twin granddaughters and their father, who is believed to be of unsound mind.

Wheatley said since her daughter, who is deceased, fell gravely ill two years ago, the twin's father has been struggling to care for them, and now that he has been evicted, she is worried about their safety.

"Anybody see him would say that him a madman. He doesn't bathe. Him nuh send dem go school and the house was stink and maggot a grow pon the plate dem," Wheatley said. "That is why the man evict him cause him nah keep the place right."

Wheatley said she heard that he was planning to move to Montego Bay when he was evicted in early August, but she doesn't know exactly where in the second city he might be.

My responsibility

"I don't even know where to start search because him and mi daughter live for seven years, and I never see a brother nor a sister come to look for him or the children," Wheatley said.

She said she has had many sleepless nights worrying about the twins.

"I just want to know that they are fine. Even if somebody tek them and send them to school, I would feel better," Wheatley said. "My daughter is dead and I feel like it's my responsibility to ensure that they can live a good life. I really just want know say dem all right."

Before the twins and their father were evicted and Wheatley lost contact with them, she had reported the matter to the Child Development Agency (CDA), who had planned to intervene.

"I went there, and they give me a receipt. But dem never come same time, and then him get evicted and nobody knows where he is now," Wheatley said.

Rochelle Dixon, the public relations and communications manager for the CDA, confirmed that the matter was indeed reported to her agency.

Twin girls

"The officer confirmed it," Dixon said. "We gonna take the photos from her, and see how we can proceed. For a case like this where it is reported that the parent is of unsound mind, it is within what we call a critical report and try to act within 24 hours."

But, sadly, Wheatley said the twin girls don't know their government names.

"Dem name Kareena Grant and Kimona Grant, but if you call dem by dem right names, dem nuh answer. Dem a ask a who name so," Wheatley claimed. "Dem go by the names Chiney Girl and Browning because they are not identical twins."

Wheatley said one of her daughter's friends had registered the girls in an infant school, but their father only allowed them to attend for two months.

"She got them inna school by herself, and it's the first time dem going school inna dem life. This was in January, and dem last about two months," Wheatley said.