Troubling signs foretold the danger that the 13-year-old Christiana student was in before she was found dead. These indications were noticed by the child’s former stepmother, Juliet Unis, who brought her unsettling suspicions to the police. Unis spoke to the media, recalling moments leading up to last Friday, when Shantina Sergeant was found in a burnt refrigerator in Bailleston, Clarendon.
For weeks, Unis carried an uneasy feeling, a sense that something was terribly wrong with Shantina. Her instincts were proven right when the child confided in her about something troubling. This urged her to take action by informing the police.
According to Unics, she expressed her concerns at the Spalding Police Station last month. In response, officers reportedly told her to return with the child, a task that became impossible when the teen refused to accompany her that afternoon.
When Unis last saw Shantina alive, the teen was hugging her younger brother tightly on a Wednesday afternoon. On Friday evening, the child went missing after school ended. When she noticed that Shantina had not returned home, Unis questioned the girl’s father, Lawrence “Marcus” Sergeant, with whom she was previously in a relationship.
“Mi ask him how she nuh come home from school yet, but mi never see him call her,” she recalled. Her own calls went unanswered. Hours later, Marcus phoned her, asking her to accompany him to the station to file a missing person’s report.
Unis recalled receiving a call that informed her that flies were swarming around Marcus’ yard. Afterwards, she said she called Marcus, questioning him about the flies, and he responded that “him don’t know because a one bed him burn up, and one fridge outta door.” Moments later, the police confirmed her worst fear: a body had been found inside a refrigerator.
The discovery shocked the community, where the smell of decay lingers in the air in the yard. Meanwhile, police have named Lawrence “Marcus” Sergeant a person of interest. Deputy Superintendent Carey Duncan urged him to come forward, emphasising that he is not being treated as a suspect but as someone who can help move the investigation forward.