Did Bones Found Belong to Marvin Bul?
Marvin Bul
On December eighteenth, Antonia Cal got the news that no mother wants to get. Police came to her workplace in Ladyville to ask her to identify the bones and clothing believed to be those of her son, Marvin Bul, found in the Dewdrop Estate in Ladyville. His Social Security card was also found inside the pants pocket and Cal identified Marvin based on his clothing. Since then, she has been waiting on the bones to be released so she can bury the remains of her son. But already grieving Bul’s death, Cal has had to deal with an unexpected shock. The medical examiner has told her that the remains may not be those of her son Marvin. Understandably distraught, Cal spoke to News Five today, and told us that she has lived with constant grief since December eighteenth when Police came looking for her.
Antonia Cal, Wants Closure in Son’s Disappearance
Antonia Cal
“By the time we mi di reach, the Policeman done had the bone in the bag, so they ker me back in and then weh happen they tek out the pants and ask me if I know the pants and I tell ah yes, I know the belt. They tek out the short pants and I tell ah yes…and the boxers yes…and the shirt…the shirt I noh really know but I see the blood…wen di Police put the shirt I see the stained blood on it. So weh happen is they start to question me. I tell ah I don’t know. All I could say is that’s my son, because they find the Social Security in the pocket. They were to check if it’s my son the twenty-third, so the twenty-fourth I was going to do the funeral for him, to bury the bones. So when I hear the man seh they have to do a deeper investigation because maybe it’s not my son. Maybe it’s somebody else. So I seh what next to do? So I come to the doctor today and I seh Doc I need to see you, this thing taking too long and I need the DNA. So he seh he can’t do anything, it’s the Police. Now I just finish call the Police and he seh he can’t do anything, he have to wait fu the doctor. So now I just confused. This from the eighteenth, and one of the Police tell me from three weeks this thing happen, so now over a month and change, so come on…I am a mother and I deh feel it no matter what my son is.”
Reporter
“But what is the doctor telling you. Why do they think it’s not your son?”
Antonia Cal
“Because the bone is too big, too long, that is what they’re saying. My son is a little bit taller than me. I am five-three and my son is a little bit taller than me. I can’t say how much feet but I know I have to put my hand over them like that.”
Cal says the last time she saw her son was on November sixteenth, a little over a month before the bones were found. She is still convinced that the bones found are those of her son.
Why is it that Belize people are so hard of understanding. I understand that this woman’s son is missing possibly dead, allow the authorities time to do their work. In America families have to wait until DNA is done and a conclusion is made. The body is already a dead body, not like the doctor or the mother can do anything to save him now.
If the police move too fast and have to go back and correct things we blame them again. How did our people get so hard of understanding. Belize is like a place far removed from civilization, may as well be in the midst of the rain forest. Help my people please.
I think the previous comment is disrespectful and presumptuous. In the States, since that is the point of reference, the mother of a person suspected of being missing would not have been asked to make an identification that can only be ascertained through forensic testing.
She is distraught because she was led to believe that her identification of the clothes would have been sufficient. If, at the outset, she were told that the remains may have been those of her son, and given a time estimate of completion in relation to forensic tests of that nature, and told that she would be contacted at the completion of the process, whatever the outcome, I believe that she would not have felt the need to contact the media.
The truth is simply that even as we may have the technical aspect of identification of remains in place, we have neglected the human element, and that is that there is a woman with raw emotion waiting for the outcome without the benefit of having that process explained to her. The comment above is right in saying that she can do nothing more than wait, but one statement based on a policy made for dealing with situations such as this should have been made available to her.
Hopefully, instead of criticizing the actions of a woman in unimaginable pain, those who have the ability to do so will take from this story that even though the police and doctor are seeking to identify the dead, there is also an element of dealing with the real pain and fears of those who are very much alive.