MONTEGO BAY, St James – Sudden changes to St James woman Twesha Heron’s daily routine sent an immediate red flag in the minds of her close relatives, said daughter Gabriel McLaren.

According to McLaren, the 40-year-old mother of three left home in Lilliput in the parish on Friday, June 25 to collect money at an ATM in downtown Montego Bay and has not been heard from since that day.

At that time, she was wearing a brown striped blouse, blue jeans and black slippers.

“She woke up early in the morning and said she was going downtown Montego Bay because she only had $500 on her so she was going downtown to come back,” a teary-eyed McLaren, the eldest child, said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer West.

The eldest child pointed out that the next conversation she shared with her mother struck her as odd, as she called at approximately 8:12 that morning, to inform her children that she will be journeying to Mandeville for a job interview.

“She called me to say she is going to Mandeville for a [job] interview but the thing is, she didn’t have any [additional] clothes with her so that was strange. She had called me once more because I sent her several messages saying that if I did not hear from her, I would have to call the police, so she called me after. That was like 9:59 am,” said the 22-year-old McLaren.

The disappearance of the single mother, she shared, has been extremely hard on her and her two younger sisters, aged 19 and 17, as they have all been worried sick about their mother’s whereabouts for the past two weeks.

“It has been hard. I am not going to lie, we are not sure what we are going to do if she is not alive or if some random creep just grabbed her and threw her body in a garbage [can], so it is hard to think about it, so we do not really think about the possibilities that much. We are just trying to find her,” said McLaren.

Revealing that her mother’s ambition was to become a nurse, McLaren noted that Heron, who last worked in housekeeping at the Cornwall Regional Hospital, would have started sitting her CSEC exams this week, something she was looking forward to for months.

“She was going back to school to become a nurse so her CSEC exams would have been Wednesday [yesterday]. She is very hard-working and she was doing that to become more independent because she was working at a hotel before,” said the daughter.

Heron’s cousin, Alecia Jenkins, whom she shared a very close relationship with, stated that she knew something was wrong when she did not hear from Heron at 10:00 am Friday.

“I last heard from her on Thursday, which was June 24, because normally we would speak at 10 (o’clock) each morning. We would both get our errands done and then we would call each other. I heard from her the Thursday so, of course, the Friday, I would have called, or she would have called at 10, but it did not happen,” said a seemingly distressed Jenkins.

After being contacted by McLaren, Jenkins said she too tried contacting her cousin but to no avail.

“I tried calling her because the moment her daughter realised that something was wrong, she called me. I tried calling Twesha and nothing. I sent messages and nothing,” she added.

Jenkins, who currently resides overseas, expressed that it is unlike her cousin to “leave her girls and not have any [form] of communication.”

“It is not like her to leave her girls and not have any [form] of communication. It is not like her to not talk to me every day. I have been here for six years, and we communicated every single day on the phone, so we know something is wrong because that is not her pattern,” said Jenkins.

The cousin is asking that anybody with information that can assist the family in locating Heron to come forward.

“Just come forward, even if you do not want us to know who were involved, just tell us where she is or please just allow her to get in contact with us,” she pleaded.

“Just let her go. I do not know what the situation was but just let her go. You have taken a woman who her family needs. Her family loves her. She has a family that is there for her, just let her go.”

When the Observer West contacted the Barrett Town Police Station yesterday, a policeman at the station said Heron was reported missing by her family, adding that “an update cannot be provided at this time.”

In the meantime, Heron’s family and relatives are hoping that she will return alive.

“We are just hoping and praying for the best,” said a family member.