Funeral may go on only with woman’s head

News

FUNERAL plans are ongoing for the 60-year-old Siparia woman whose severed head was found in a cooler on the roadside. Up to March 24, the rest of Joanne Estick’s body was still to be found.

Relatives were organising the funeral.

“I cannot say when or where the funeral would be yet. It is time for her to rest in peace. The funeral might have to go on without her body. Her body might remain wherever it is, if it is still there. Relatives could not find her documents like her identification card,” a relative said.

Estick was the mother of one and grandmother of three. Her only child, an adult daughter, died during the pandemic in the US. The first night since the grisly discovery, candles were lit at the family’s home.

The family has not held any wakes.

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In December, she moved out of the family’s home and went to stay in Quinam also in Siparia.

Around 1.15 pm on March 13, South Western Division police got a tip-off about a bag covered with flies on the roadside with a woman’s severed head at Sennon Village No. 3 in Siparia.

The head was inside a plastic cooler in the bag in a slip drain, opposite an incomplete structure.

Last week, an autopsy done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James confirmed that her head had been chopped off.

At Sennon Village, where she frequented, villagers lit candles on the spot where the head was found.

A villager who described himself as Estick's friend said no one looked down at her.

“Some people on social media were saying Joanne was a street dweller. That was not true. She kept herself decent. Although she used drugs, she was cool,” the villager said.

Since the gruesome discovery, villagers have been uneasy.

The villager, who asked not to be named, said he now has to accompany close female relatives to the main street. He said they no longer feel safe walking the road alone.

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No one has been arrested, and the police are calling on anyone with information to come forward.

Homicide Bureau of Investigations, Region Three, police are investigating.

People with information can call the nearest police station or the police at 999, 555 and Crime Stoppers at 800-TIPS (8477).