REXDALE - Losing a family member is hard enough.
But when it’s a loved one who depends on you and they vanish off the face of the earth, each day the person is missing can more excruciatingly painful than the last.
That heartbreak is a feeling Jean Mahabir knows all too well.
Her brother Jotesh Rambaran, also known as “Dado,” disappeared nearly three months ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mahabir told The Sun recently, sitting in her missing brother’s apartment.
“How could a six-foot tall man just disappear?” she wonder aloud in her thick Caribbean accent.
The 46-year-old man, who suffers from severe epilepsy, was last seen Dec. 10, 2011, at his highrise at 2667 Kipling Ave., a block north of Finch Ave. W.
And his sister as been worried sick.
“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,” said Mahabir, who lives in the same building a few floors below the youngest of her eight siblings.
She paces around her apartment much of the night, sleeps on the couch and waits for her baby brother to show up at the door.
“I need to know what happened,” Mahabir said, bursting into tears.
Rambaran moved to Canada from Guyana in 1990 and lived with his mom until she died two years ago, then he moved in with his sister and her family in their Rexdale apartment.
”It’s not safe for him to be alone, especially around the stove,” Mahabir said.
She said her brother suffers seizures two or three times a month, so he needs a caregiver.
“He doesn’t function like a grown man,” Mahabir said. “He’s still just a boy in a lot of ways.”
Rambaran eventually moved in with a friend of his sister’s, an older man who is “kind of like family” and lives in the same building.
However, he still spent most days at his sister’s apartment, sipping tea, reading the newspaper and doing cross-word puzzles.
Mahabir cooked for him, took him shopping and to doctor’s appointments.
Rambaran is on disability, so when he got paid at the end of the month his sister said he would walk to Rowntree Plaza, a block north of his highrise, withdraw his daily maximum of $500 from the ATM and then buy cigarettes.
The next day he’d walk back to the plaza and take out the remaining $400 from his account.
Other than that. he rarely left home, Mahabir said.
She last saw her brother on Dec. 8, a Thursday. He sat in her apartment enjoying a cup of tea.
When he left that night, Mahabir gave him three meals she prepared for him for the next day because she was going to Brampton to visit a sick aunt.
She didn’t think much of it when she got home that night and couldn’t reach him on the phone. She just figured maybe the superintendant, one of her brother’s few friends, had invited him to his apartment for a beer.
Mahabir tried calling again all day Saturday, but still there was no answer.
When she still couldn’t get in touch with her brother on Sunday, and his roommate hadn’t called back either, she began to worry.
She knocked on his apartment door. When there was no answer, she used a spare key and let herself in.
As she searched the dark apartment, going from room to room, reality set in.
“I thought what if he had a seizure?” Mahabir recalled.
She looked around each corner, on the balcony, under the dining table and in her brother’s bedroom — terrified she’d find him dead.
But Rambaran was nowhere to be found.
“I called the police around 10 o’clock that night,” Mahabir said, explaining officers didn’t arrive until 3:30 a.m.
Police took a look around and talked to Rambaran’s roommate, who was home by then and is believed to be the last person known to have seen him.
That was around 5 a.m. on the Saturday.
Mahabir said her brother was apparently in his underwear walking from the kitchen back to his bedroom when the roommate arrived home, they scared each other.
But she thinks it’s odd the food she cooked for her brother for Friday was untouched.
She’s also convinced if her brother was home that Saturday morning he’d have come down to visit once he awoke to ask how her sick aunt was doing.
“I have a hundred scenarios going through my head,” Mahabir said, adding she believes her brother is still alive.
Toronto Police say they’ve exhausted all investigative avenues and there’s little else they can do at this point.
They searched the building, the Humber River and the surrounding ravine behind the building.
And still, like Rambaran, all police can do is wait for someone comes forward and give them direction.
“It’s very frustrating for police and especially for the family when we can’t find the answers they are looking for.” said Det.-Const. Prekshat Saini, of 23 Division.
Anyone with information on Rambaran’s whereabouts is urged to contact investigators at 416-808-2300, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca
http://www.torontosun.com/2012...f-those-left-waiting
But when it’s a loved one who depends on you and they vanish off the face of the earth, each day the person is missing can more excruciatingly painful than the last.
That heartbreak is a feeling Jean Mahabir knows all too well.
Her brother Jotesh Rambaran, also known as “Dado,” disappeared nearly three months ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mahabir told The Sun recently, sitting in her missing brother’s apartment.
“How could a six-foot tall man just disappear?” she wonder aloud in her thick Caribbean accent.
The 46-year-old man, who suffers from severe epilepsy, was last seen Dec. 10, 2011, at his highrise at 2667 Kipling Ave., a block north of Finch Ave. W.
And his sister as been worried sick.
“I can’t eat, I can’t sleep,” said Mahabir, who lives in the same building a few floors below the youngest of her eight siblings.
She paces around her apartment much of the night, sleeps on the couch and waits for her baby brother to show up at the door.
“I need to know what happened,” Mahabir said, bursting into tears.
Rambaran moved to Canada from Guyana in 1990 and lived with his mom until she died two years ago, then he moved in with his sister and her family in their Rexdale apartment.
”It’s not safe for him to be alone, especially around the stove,” Mahabir said.
She said her brother suffers seizures two or three times a month, so he needs a caregiver.
“He doesn’t function like a grown man,” Mahabir said. “He’s still just a boy in a lot of ways.”
Rambaran eventually moved in with a friend of his sister’s, an older man who is “kind of like family” and lives in the same building.
However, he still spent most days at his sister’s apartment, sipping tea, reading the newspaper and doing cross-word puzzles.
Mahabir cooked for him, took him shopping and to doctor’s appointments.
Rambaran is on disability, so when he got paid at the end of the month his sister said he would walk to Rowntree Plaza, a block north of his highrise, withdraw his daily maximum of $500 from the ATM and then buy cigarettes.
The next day he’d walk back to the plaza and take out the remaining $400 from his account.
Other than that. he rarely left home, Mahabir said.
She last saw her brother on Dec. 8, a Thursday. He sat in her apartment enjoying a cup of tea.
When he left that night, Mahabir gave him three meals she prepared for him for the next day because she was going to Brampton to visit a sick aunt.
She didn’t think much of it when she got home that night and couldn’t reach him on the phone. She just figured maybe the superintendant, one of her brother’s few friends, had invited him to his apartment for a beer.
Mahabir tried calling again all day Saturday, but still there was no answer.
When she still couldn’t get in touch with her brother on Sunday, and his roommate hadn’t called back either, she began to worry.
She knocked on his apartment door. When there was no answer, she used a spare key and let herself in.
As she searched the dark apartment, going from room to room, reality set in.
“I thought what if he had a seizure?” Mahabir recalled.
She looked around each corner, on the balcony, under the dining table and in her brother’s bedroom — terrified she’d find him dead.
But Rambaran was nowhere to be found.
“I called the police around 10 o’clock that night,” Mahabir said, explaining officers didn’t arrive until 3:30 a.m.
Police took a look around and talked to Rambaran’s roommate, who was home by then and is believed to be the last person known to have seen him.
That was around 5 a.m. on the Saturday.
Mahabir said her brother was apparently in his underwear walking from the kitchen back to his bedroom when the roommate arrived home, they scared each other.
But she thinks it’s odd the food she cooked for her brother for Friday was untouched.
She’s also convinced if her brother was home that Saturday morning he’d have come down to visit once he awoke to ask how her sick aunt was doing.
“I have a hundred scenarios going through my head,” Mahabir said, adding she believes her brother is still alive.
Toronto Police say they’ve exhausted all investigative avenues and there’s little else they can do at this point.
They searched the building, the Humber River and the surrounding ravine behind the building.
And still, like Rambaran, all police can do is wait for someone comes forward and give them direction.
“It’s very frustrating for police and especially for the family when we can’t find the answers they are looking for.” said Det.-Const. Prekshat Saini, of 23 Division.
Anyone with information on Rambaran’s whereabouts is urged to contact investigators at 416-808-2300, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca
http://www.torontosun.com/2012...f-those-left-waiting
