KINGSTON, Jamaica — Crystal Service, the mother of slain eight-year-old Shantae Skyers, stormed out of a community meeting at the Sterling Castle New Testament Church of God yesterday evening when a policewoman from the Center for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISCOA) questioned why her daughter was on the road at the time she is believed to have gone missing.

Setting the record straight, the mother of two who lives in Spanish Town, St Catherine, said the child was living with her father and grandmother when she went missing.

The grief-stricken woman, who later returned to the church, said she has seen comments on social media insinuating that she’s careless.

“I am not a bad mother,” Service told OBSERVER ONLINE after the community meeting.

“I have been reading a lot of things on Facebook that people are talking about me, me the mother.  Now she is a police officer as she states you don’t come with false news, you come with direct news. I was feeling very angry when she said my child was on the road 10 o’clock in the night. She did not ask, she was making that statement like she had known about it and it was true. I was very upset about that,” Service explained.

Skyers’ body was found in an area of the Sterling castle community called Blue Hole, last Tuesday after she had gone missing on Thursday, April 11.

According to the official missing person report from the police, relatives last saw the child at 7:00 am when she left home for school. At the time, she was dressed in her school uniform — a navy blue tunic, white blouse and black shoes.

Racquel Porter