Missing for 25 years - Mother searches for son she left with vendor when he was 3-y-o

A 49-year-old woman who left her three-year-old son with a stranger 25 years ago is now trying to locate him.

The woman, Winsome Clarke, who lived in Manchester at the time, said she left the boy, Wentworth Leon Chambers, with a woman in May Pen, Clarendon, with the expectation that his father would have collected him.

She admits that she did not follow up with the vendor to figure out whether the boy was collected by his father. She said that was after a “few months” that she realised that the child was not collected by the father.

Clarke told The STAR that she had spent the past 25 years looking for the boy, who she affectionately called Chazzar. She stated that she had taken the child to give to his father but decided to leave him with the woman when he did not show up on time.

“I was waiting on him but night was coming and bus was hard to get and the landlady was giving me hell. It was a woman that we both know. I don’t remember her name, though, but she was a big woman at the time so she suppose to old now. She was short and black and she used to sell ground provisions at Guinep Tree in May Pen. I usually go back to May Pen and look if I see the lady but I never saw her,” she said.

Clarke said that neither her nor Chazzar’s father, Delroy Chambers, laid eyes on the woman since she handed over her baby. She told The STAR that she did not report the matter to the police, stating that she was “scared”.

“I have no one to blame but myself. I was relying on his father to find him and I really never live anywhere at the time. I should have reported the matter to the police. If I get one more chance at life, I would rather live under tree with him. I have been searching for him all along, not just now, and I cry till I can’t cry any more. I even called a television programme to see if I could widen the search, but I am still on the waiting list,” Clarke said.

Feels incomplete

Clarke has three other children ages, 25, 16 and 15, but says her life feels incomplete without her first-born child.

“My mother had four kids and her husband never want me at his home. She was paying the rent for me, but when she stopped, the landlord run me. I never had anywhere to live so that’s the main reason I never reported it,” she added.

Chambers, 52, whose relationship with Clarke ended shortly after the baby was born, said he had no idea his son was not with his mother until about three months after she left him with the woman.

“She left the baby with a woman at Guinep Tree in May Pen. I don’t know the woman personally, is just someone I saw. She didn’t tell me same time say she leave the baby with the woman, is months after mi find out. Mi babymother tell mi say she carry the baby come look for me and never see mi. She usually come a week time, but I didn’t know she was coming that day, so mi never deh home. All this time mi think she have the child a country with her,” he said.

Like Clarke, Chambers said he never informed the police of the incident but went on a futile search for his only child.

“We searched everywhere in Clarendon but no one really know the woman. I am not sure if she is even from Clarendon. Mi sorry mi never report the matter to the police. I don’t even know the name of the woman who have mi pickney...Nobody nuh seem to know her name and some people all a say she dead,” the father said.

Clarke said that although it has been more than two decades since she last saw her son, she is appealing to anyone who may have information to help her locate the boy who would have celebrated his 28th birthday on May 25.

“There are persons that are saying that I am seeking something from him why I am still searching for him, but that is not the case. I just want to find him. I made a really bad mistake when I left him with the woman. I just want to find my son,” she insisted.