Tianna Clarke’s shocking death still lingers
MONTEGO BAY, St James — Four years after losing her 14-year-old daughter Tianna Clarke in gruesome fashion, Valesha Vidal has still not come to terms with the incidents surrounding her child’s shocking death.
Tianna was found dead in an unfinished building neighbouring her Brown’s Lane home in the St James community of Granville on February 16, 2018.
The child’s smashed-in face and partially nude body were tell-tale signs of a traumatic and undeserved death. The grade eight student of St James High School had been killed in cold blood and there was also strong evidence of sexual abuse, the police had reported.
When the Jamaica Observer visited Vidal in her community recently, the grieving mother’s somber mood was infectious and had set the tone for what can best be described as a tough conversation.
The wounds inflicted by the death of her only daughter, Vidal said, had completely derailed her life, as even four years later, she is still trying her best to pick up the pieces.
“Her death, sometimes I try not to think about it because if I do, I just feel like I go mad out. A lot of people wouldn’t understand because they haven’t experienced the ordeal that I had to go through,” Vidal said as she broke down in tears.
“Better dem did rape her and lef her mek mi pick up the pieces. But you kill my one daughter and then you lef everything pon me. Mi a tell you the truth, it’s like mi did a go crazy,” the mother of four added.
Vidal told the Sunday Observer that she vividly remembers the series of incidents leading up to the life-changing discovery of Tianna’s lifeless body.
The young girl had asked her mother for money to go purchase a cup of noodle soup from a community shop.
Without a clue of the tragic events that would next take place, Vidal gave Tianna some spare change she had and allowed the child to go to the shop. That interaction, she told the Sunday Observer, was the last time she spoke with her teenage daughter.
“It was on a Friday night…she came to me and said that she wanted to go buy a cup soup. She was always a little girl who liked cup soup,” the mother said with a faint smile.
“So, she said to me that she needed $20 more to go get it, suh mi give her it. But because mi know seh she was not a little girl who go out a road, I know a just shop she a go and come back, I never have a problem with her going,” Vidal said.
The mother stated that she had soon fallen asleep and was awakened in the wee hours of Saturday morning only to realise that Tianna had not made it home. Frightened and confused, Vidal attempted to phone the child’s father who also lives in the Granville community.
“It’s like a likkle spirit come over me and say get up, so mi get up and go round the room. Tianna and my youngest son slept on one bed, and I realised that she wasn’t in bed. I asked my big son for her and him seh, ‘mi nuh know’. So, mi seh unnu sista nuh come in and none a unnu never call me and seh anything? Mi puzzled now ‘cause mi a seh she’s not a girl fi go out and nuh come in,” Vidal recounted.
After hearing that Tianna’s father had also not seen her, Vidal rushed to the Granville Police Station to report the child missing. Vidal’s life then took a tragic turn as news spread like wildfire that the body of a young girl had been found just metres from the family’s home.
Tianna’s jawbone, Vidal told the Sunday Observer, had been broken as she was badly beaten with a blunt object.
On top of the trauma and hurt that Vidal experienced in losing Tianna, the mother had to part ways with many of her belongings as she had no other means of financing the child’s funeral.
“I lost everything. I had to sell most of the things in my house. Mi get help you know and mi grateful fi everybody wah help me out. Mi never have no money because I wasn’t working…so, I had to sell my [television], fridge and stove,” said Vidal.
“Right now mi still nuh have a stove but mi still have fi a gwan.”
Although a man, Courtney Allen, was arrested and charged in relation to Tianna’s death, Vidal said she has not received closure as he is yet to be convicted.
“We used to have a guy weh live out there suh…we called him ‘Zoo Bug’. He is a man that I’ve known all my life…an older man for me. We all grew up together, so mi nuh expect him fi do this to my daughter. He was arrested and charged, but he is on bail. People see him around but mi never lucky fi buck him up anywhere. Him always a send message to tell me seh him never do it,” Vidal told the Sunday Observer.
With a fellow community member being charged in relation to her child’s gruesome killing, Vidal said that she has been the subject of much scrutiny.
“People blame me for a whole lot of things that I didn’t know about. Mi always talk seh dem give me wah big basket fi carry water. I had four of them with no father figure, so I had to work. I worked on every construction site you can think of,” she said.
Word quickly got around that young Tianna allegedly had a personal relationship with the accused man, Vidal said.
“I heard that when me gone work the man used to come at the fence and pass things to her. It was when she passed away that I heard all of that. Her friends at school said she used to carry a lot of money and mi know a nuh me did a give it to her. But dem seh mi did know,” the mother said.
While the murder of her young daughter remains unsolved, Vidal is hoping for the day that Tianna’s killer is convicted in court.
“Mi just a try brush of myself. If anybody could turn the hands of time mi would just want back mi daughter because I think about that all the time,” she said.
“Who did it should look into themself because I know they have a mom and sisters, so they shouldn’t have done that to my daughter,” Vidal added.
Sunday Observer checks revealed that the accused man will be back in court on September 20, 2022.