Officials at St Peter Claver Primary and Infant School in St Andrew opted not to speak on Monday after the police disclosed that skeletal remains believed to be that of missing teacher Danielle Anglin were found.

However, outside the school gate parents and vendors were in tears.

“A one nice teacher. I have a little baby and he’s at school now. She loves him. She plays with him, always a say is her little boyfriend. She’s nice, man, she’s always pleasant. When you see her, you see her with a whole lot of kids and the children them love her,” one of the vendors told the Jamaica Observer.

“[My son] ask me about her, but I kinda throw it off because I don’t want it to affect him. He’s four, and him ask fi her, him say ‘Mommy, weh mi teacher deh?’ It really sad, man, it’s truly sad,” she said with tears filling her eyes.

Another vendor sharing her memory of Anglin said, “A one loving teacher. One little boy over the school who behave a way because him see when them kill him father and him hard fi manage, she was the one who was able to get him to settle down”.

Yet another vendor stated, “Mi a tell you, tears inna mi eye fi her. A mi good, good, nice teacher. You see a teacher like her, when it came to the children learning or when school over, to go home, she was just so nice. I just came outta my yard and them a tell me, and a pure tears come a me eye.

“Miss Anglin is a good teacher, a loving teacher, and she loves children. She’s always jovial, nuh care how the mood weh you inna, she always give you a nice smile. A one nice teacher, and fi really see she gone missing and them find her body, I don’t know the motive but it’s really sad, because I do not know her as them person there,” she said.

On Monday the police were supremely confident that a convicted sex offender connected to rideshare service inDrive Jamaica is behind the May 13, 2024 abduction and murder of Anglin, the clincher being cyber forensics and intelligence from national closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance programme JamaicaEye.

Deputy commissioner of police in charge of crime Fitz Bailey made the disclosure after news emerged that investigations had led cops to skeletal remains in Salt River, Clarendon, just over 23 miles from Anglin’s house in Hellshire, Portmore, St Catherine. He said, while the police are awaiting forensic data to verify that the body is in fact Anglin’s, “given the weight of the evidence collected thus far” and a statement from the convicted felon “admitting his involvement”, cops are certain that he is the man who committed the crime.

According to Bailey, the driver, who had been arrested and charged in 2015 by the police for sexual offences, was also convicted in Antigua for sexual offences and deported to Jamaica.

Bailey, who said the suspect is in custody and is to be formally questioned in the presence of an attorney, shared that investigators believe the 29-year-old educator “was killed the same day she disappeared”, solving the mystery of what happened after she left her house on the Monday in question for work at St Peter Claver Primary and Infant School in St Andrew.

“We have identified that she was picked up by the suspect. I can also say that with the help of JamaicaEye we were able to identify a specific route which the motor car that she was in travelled. We were able to identify some special items through the JamaicaEye system. So we believe that she was taken to the location and, based on the analysis that was done by the Communication Forensic and Cyber Crime Division (CFCD), we believe that she was taken to that specific location and killed,” Bailey said.

He said an investigative team comprising CFCD, members of the St Catherine South Criminal Investigations Branch, Scenes of Crime and Criminal Investigations Branch, visited her community and school to conduct interviews. The senior cop said investigators utilised available technologies and forensic capabilities which allowed for identification of a number of vehicles which were assessed and analysed and a vehicle of interest identified.

“The driver of the vehicle was subsequently identified and taken into custody following investigations. Again, with the use of technologies, we were able to identify a location in Salt River, Clarendon as the last identifiable location where Miss Anglin was held. As a direct result, a number of searches were done within sections of St Catherine and Clarendon,” Bailey said.

He said Monday about 6:30 am cops made the discovery of the human skeletal remains in the Salt River area.

“Based on where we are in our investigations we are satisfied and convinced that we have the right person in custody and it is just a matter of time for the various administrative processes to take place, then we can speak further, but we are satisfied, based on our investigations, that we have the right person. The motor vehicle that he drove was processed and we are awaiting the results from the lab in respect to that,” he stated.

Bailey, in the meantime, said rideshare operations have been a thorn in the side of investigators because of their dependence on in-app communications and the absence of physical bases.

“One of the challenges that we are faced with as investigators is, we do not have any local based association or organisation that we can contact when investigating cases involving these types of services, and it is something that I will be taking up with the relevant authorities to ensure that more structure is put in place to treat with these types of associations or organisations. It is posing a serious challenge to our investigative efforts,” the crime chief stated.

Speaking with the Observer further on Monday, Bailey said cops received no input whatsoever from the rideshare outfit in solving the teacher’s disappearance.

“That service should not be operating in Jamaica,” he declared.

Questions from the Observer to the official Instagram page of the rideshare service went unanswered, but several replies were posted to individuals who bombarded the platform with questions about its attempts, if any, in finding the missing teacher and at least two other individuals.

In one response to a frustrated user who questioned the outfit about its silence two weeks ago, inDrive Jamaica said, “We understand your concerns and want to assure you that we are making every effort on our side to contribute with the ongoing official process. Our specialised team is conducting a thorough internal investigation. However, we are required to comply with the data protection laws and can only provide trip information upon request from law enforcement agencies. Our goal is to collaborate with the police to assist in the clarification of all incidents.”

In response to one post which said “You can definitely see who picked up the teacher because rides are in history to be reviewed” it replied, “We are aware of the case and truly understand your concern. We have initiated an internal investigation to determine how this occurred. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

To a post from an individual rallying other Jamaicans to lobby for a ban on the app in the Jamaican space inDrive Jamaica posted, “We understand how you feel, however we assure you that we take every report very seriously in these types of situations as we follow up accordingly and as fast as possible”.

Anglin, a past student of St Joseph Teachers’ College and Excelsior High, was last seen about 5:50 am on Monday, May 13, 2024 while on her way to work.