The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THE daughter of a missing 89-year-old man suffering from dementia yesterday expressed disappointment in the lack of “police support” in locating her elderly father.

Laurel Lundy, the daughter of Charles Lightbourne, said her family has not heard anything from police since concerned relatives reported Mr Lightbourne missing on Saturday evening.

According to Mrs Lundy, Mr Lightbourne was last seen between noon to 5pm on Saturday “in the fields” of the family’s expansive property on Carmichael Road west, which she estimated to be about 20 acres in size. She said her father was last seen in a light-blue, long-sleeved shirt with short blue jeans and a “blue sailor hat.”

Family members said Mr Lightbourne is 5’10”.

Mrs Lundy said when family members did not hear from Mr Lightbourne on Saturday evening, they called police for help. Mrs Lundy said she and her older sister both went to the Carmichael Road police station as well as the Central Detective Unit (CDU) on Saturday and Sunday to report the matter.

“Now this is Monday, mid-Monday evening, and I don’t see any police support,” Mrs Lundy said. “Nobody has been here. And this is a big property. And I told (the officers) I thought we needed the (search) dogs because this is a big property.”

Making matters worse, Mrs Lundy said, is the fact that her father suffers from dementia, a condition he was diagnosed with after suffering severe injuries from a brutal beating he received from an unknown assailant earlier this year.

The attack was so gruesome that Mr Lightbourne lost his left eye and suffered huge gashes on his head and nose from being repeatedly hit with a shovel and a piece of wood.

“Since the incident in February, he’s been diagnosed with dementia, and he’s not been himself since then,” she added. “You know he lost his eye in that attack. He hasn’t really accepted it because he believes he’s going to see again. And so he holds on when he moves, because he doesn’t really see that well.

“But when he’s having episodes of delusion, he doesn’t know who he is.

“Daddy doesn’t sleep out,” she added. “This is now two nights he slept out.”

Mrs Lundy said family members have visited the morgue, as well as the Accident and Emergency section at the Princess Margaret Hospital(PMH) since Saturday, but their efforts yielded no results.

Still, Mrs Lundy said relatives, friends and concerned church members are helping in the search, and will continue to disseminate Mr Lightbourne’s information on social media and on flyers in hopes of locating the elderly man as soon as possible.

“We’re in the process of posting on the street and in businesses in addition to digital media,” she said. “It’s on Whatsapp, it’s on Facebook, Instagram – so we’re getting it around. It’s just that I don’t feel the police support.”

In early March, The Tribune reported that Mr Lightbourne had been beaten near his home by a suspected thief. At the time, his family claimed police had not been proactive in their investigation and alleged they were told by officers to take their own pictures because crime scene personnel were “not available at the time.”