In October 2008 the nation was rocked by news of the discovery of the decomposing remains of an 11-year-old girl who was found dumped in bushes in Cypress Hill in the community of Belvedere, St Andrew.

DNA tests and identification by relatives revealed that the body was that of Ananda Dean.

The child had gone missing after she left the Swallowfield All Age School on Whitehall Avenue after the closing school bell rang.

But that was almost five years ago. And for the little girl’s parents they are finding it hard to move on from that point.

“Five years have passed but the pain has not eased. I have not gotten any closure. Each passing day you wonder what she would look like. However I am comforted by the fact that it was not her fault and she must be in heaven,” Richard Dean, Ananda’s father, told the Jamaica Observer.

The child’s mother, Nardia Campbell is still under the emotional gun.

“I find it very hard to explain, trust me. I was just looking at her picture. I will never ever be the same woman again. My daughter did nothing to deserve to be dumped in bushes, after them rape her. I can’t and will never be able to move on from there,” Campbell said.

Campbell lives in an impoverished community which runs off Manning’s Hill Road and recently, as often happens in communities that fall in the lower social strata, she got into a tiff with another woman.

As usual the woman held no verbal punches.

“She cuss me and tell me how mi daughter dead and when dem find her she stink up the place. I couldn’t deal with it and mi almost chop her up and go a prison.” Campbell said.

The child was last seen after receiving money from someone in the Whitehall community. She boarded a bus enroute to the bustling hub of Half-Way-Tree on September 17, 2008. The Half-Way-Tree Municipal Bus Park was the last place that she was seen.

The following day, several of her school books were found miles away along a pathway in the community of Pembroke Hall, St Andrew.

According to the child’s father, he could not bring himself to go and look at his daughter’s remains, even though he was told by persons who had gone to the scene that all indications were that the body was that of his daughter.

“I never went there. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t really afraid but I just couldn’t do it,” he said.

After five years, homicide investigators have not closed the investigation into the child’s murder.

Ananda Dean was raped and murdered. Her untimely death shocked the nation, but no one has been charged for her murder. That fact lies heavily on the minds of her parents.

“It is hard to know that the person who did it is still out there. It can’t get any easier. I try to put on a brave face everyday. And when I look at her picture, as I do everyday, it brings back sad memories. This was a child that stuck by me she was always where I was and even now I feel like I want to stretch out my hand for her to hold when I am walking sometimes in my community,” her father said.

Before Ananda’s gruesome demise, the police had a policy that dictated that only after 24 hours could any human being be considered missing, so for one complete day all systems were not ratcheted up to find the missing child.

That same year, more than 700 children were reported missing between January 1 and September 3. And then, with their backs against the wall, the then Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government initiated the Ananda Alert system.

The Ananda Alert meant that police had to actively investigate cases of missing persons as soon as a report was filed, especially children.

Campbell said that despite her child’s misfortune being used to highlight a national problem, enough is not being done to investigate cases of missing children.

“It makes no sense to use my daughter’s name and say it’s an Ananda Alert. It’s just a name. The Government must stand up and do more for their missing children. Just having an Ananda Alert is not making it. You still have kids going missing all now,” the bereaved mother said.

Every night on one of two local television stations an appeal is aired as a public service announcement trying to locate missing children and adults.

Richard Dean watches with intensity these nightly reports.

“I cry for all those parents whose children have gone missing. I feel their pain because I know what it is like. Sometimes I can’t hold back the tears,” he said.

Dean has two other children and his spouse is expecting the birth of another child in weeks. Uncannily, medical staff have projected that the child will be born within days of the anniversary of Ananda’s death.

“I want to live for my two other kids. She has a brother and a sister. Her brother was very close to her. It was like they were man and wife. It has affected him badly. His sister doesn’t show as much emotion openly but you know it’s there,” he said.

Nardia Campbell has four other children, one of them a teenage daughter. To send them to school on a bus is a daily emotional barrier that she has to cross.

“Everyday when mi send mi kids them to school on a bus mi a fret a wonder if the same thing ago happen again. People would not know how when these things happen to you how it affect you bad. I will never get over it,” she said.

Campbell’s daughter is particularly shell-shocked and, according to her mother she is afraid of the outdoors.

“Everyday she just scared of everything. I just have to guide her and be there for her, because I know what she is going through,” she said.

Detectives from the Major Investigation Task Force are still investigating what could be described as a cold case.