THIS WEEK, Missing Persons takes another look at the case of Gladis Ione Norville, originally carried last year. The 90-year-old resident of 1st Avenue, Alleyne Land, Bush Hall, St Michael, was last seen on April 26, 2009, about noon near her home.Missing Persons spoke to Norville’s cousin Ricardo Norville in a telephone interview yesterday. He described her as an active, independent, happy person, as well as a devout Christian.“I knew her for quite a while, and we got along well. She was a bit of a tomboy in her youth and she still had some of it in her. “She was very active in her old age, always kept busy, and was always smiling. She was also once a deaconess in the Advent Avenue Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Bank Hall, which she attended all her adult life,” Ricardo said.He said Norville was also reserved and so it would not be easy for a stranger to get to know her. Still, he said, she was someone whom you could love if you took the time to.He said Norville’s disappearance really hit him hard, because he was accustomed to having regular chats with her. He said they had even had one of those chats the week she disappeared.“I remember talking to her about her life and family . . . in an effort to understand exactly how we were related and which family we had in common,” he added. Ricardo is still confused over what happened to his cousin. He said while it was not the first time she had wandered, she never went far, and neighbours usually guided her back home. He said he had undertaken a personal mission to find her.“I went to Harrisons, St Lucy, where she came from and searched. I looked for days through every cane ground, cave, canal and bush in St Michael – anywhere where a body could be; but there was nothing, and no one saw her nor knew where she went.“I even considered posting a reward recently, but people told me too much time had passed,” he added.Even now, Ricardo still pains over the loss, but for him it is the uncertainty of what happened to Norville that is worse.“It’s sad to know she walked away with no trace. If only I could hear something; even if it is that her remains have been found. Not to know what became of her is a situation I can’t come to grips with. I really miss her,” he said.At that time last year her adopted daughter Margaret “Wendy” Hoyte said her mother loved to walk, but her mind tended “to wander as far as her feet”.“There is no one who walks the road better than that woman, [but now] I don’t know if she had a bath or if she is getting something to eat,” Margaret had said.She had said Norville was accustomed to straying from home into areas like Bishop’s Court Hill, My Lord’s Hill, Eden Lodge, Tudor Bridge and Bridge Gap – all in St Michael – places where she had been found in the past.“When she wanted to come home or when she got tired walking, she would tell someone, ‘I can’t remember where I live’,” she had said.Margaret recalled the day things started to go wrong: when her mother did not want to enter her own home. “A day she came from church, and I couldn’t get her inside the house. All she kept saying was the things in the house is hers; but the house and the land ain’t hers. I had to force her to go in. “The woman said she was not happy in there. I had to keep her in that house when the days come. I had to start sleeping across there because she started leaving . . . telling me that she getting ready to go to church,” she had said then.Margaret had said her mother told her she wanted to go back to her original home in St Lucy; but Margaret said that was impossible as Norville no longer had a home there.“She said she wanted to go back to St Lucy, but her mother and father are dead, and there is no house there,” Margaret said then.Norville was last seen wearing a mauve polka dot skirt and a blue and white shirt. She is five feet four in height; of slim build; of brown complexion; with grey hair; a wrinkled face; protruding forehead; and has large ears and nose.She does a lot of walking and frequents the Bridge Gap and Tudor Bridge areas. She is said to have a pleasant manner.Anyone who may have knowledge of the whereabouts of Norville is asked to contact the police at District “A” Police Station at 430-7242/46/95; Operations Control at 430-7100; the emergency line at 211; or the nearest police station.
• [email protected]
