Kelvin Turnbull Jr. has been fixing boat engines since primary school, and though he’s not a licensed captain his mother Ahelia Turnbull said he’s a skilled mariner.
But when she tried warning him on New Year’s Eve to be careful in case he hit the seas, it wasn’t just his proclivity for boating that worried Ms. Turnbull: She hadn’t heard from her son in three days or seen him in 12, when she left Tortola to go on holiday, she told the Beacon on Monday.
Police believe that Mr. Turnbull and Khori Prince went missing after leaving Tortola together aboard a powerboat on Dec. 31, and despite efforts by family and law enforcement to track their potential movements throughout the region, their whereabouts remain unknown.
Now, as Ms. Turnbull and Allina Sprauve — Mr. Prince’s mother — continue to phone customs and police departments across the Caribbean looking for any leads, Ms. Turnbull said she is “just basically praying and [asking] God for answers.”
“I’m still hopeful that they’re alive,” she added.
The boat
In interviews with the Beacon, Mses. Turnbull and Sprauve said they didn’t know their sons knew each other.
They added that they didn’t know where the men would have gone or how they had access to the Gorda Sound, the 36-foot Avanti powerboat that police believe they had boarded before disappearing.
Police declined to answer questions about the Gorda Sound, and on Tuesday an employee at Island Life Charters, which posted photos of passengers aboard the boat in July 2020, declined to comment and said her employer would reach out instead.
But no one from the company had contacted the Beacon by press time yesterday afternoon. Police also have been tight-lipped about why Mr. Prince was not serving prison time after a High Court judge sentenced him on Dec. 3 to more than three years imprisonment for four counts, including burglary, escaping lawful custody and damaging property.
Police Information Officer Diane Drayton previously told the Beacon that Mr. Prince “had been discharged” from prison before his disappearance, but she didn’t explain why.
On Tuesday, she directed this reporter to the High Court for more information.
High Court officials directed this reporter to Her Majesty’s Prison, but HMP Superintendent Guy Hill declined to comment.
The search
Police, meanwhile, said they searched for the men extensively after they were reported missing. “While [police] commenced searches within local waters almost immediately after receiving report on Jan. 4 and continued for two weeks, efforts were concentrated on alerting law enforcement agencies overseas to be on the lookout for the missing men and the vessel,” according to an emailed statement from Ms. Drayton.
She added that police contacted officials in the United States Virgin Islands and jurisdictions as far south as Martinique and Guadeloupe.
While Ms. Drayton claimed that police officers quickly began plying the sea for signs of the missing men, they did not enlist the assistance of Virgin Islands Search and Rescue, the non-profit organisation that often plays a major role in search operations.
Ms. Drayton explained that VISAR’s assistance would have been unwarranted, as Messrs. Turnbull and Prince were reported missing about four days after they were believed to have vanished.
Ms. Sprauve said that she had waited to report her son’s disappearance to the police until Jan. 4 because she had been trying to contact his siblings before then to see if they had any knowledge of his whereabouts.
By the time Ms. Sprauve contacted VISAR Operations Manager Phil Aspinall on Jan. 10 with questions about the search, Mr. Aspinall said her call was the first he was hearing about it, Ms. Sprauve recalled.
Recalling her conversation, Ms. Sprauve said she was told that “they didn’t even know there was a missing person.”
‘I don’t stop calling’
Ms. Turnbull did not recall when she first contacted police about her son’s disappearance, but she said her New Year’s Eve calls to him were part of a series of missed calls.
When her son didn’t respond to a Dec. 28 text message, Ms. Turnbull began trying him once a day to no avail, she said.
“That’s the kind of mom I am: I don’t stop calling till I get them,” she said, referring to her children.
With almost no information, the two mothers have been working together to place calls across the region to every “coast guard, prison or police station” that might have seen or held their sons, Ms. Turnbull said.
But like the VI police, they said their search so far has been fruitless.
While Ms. Turnbull made it clear that “she is not trying to bash anyone,” she said she has reached out to police more often than they’ve reached out to her, and the answers to her questions often have been brief.
Meeting with police
Ms. Sprauve said that a Monday meeting with acting Deputy Police Commissioner Jacqueline Vanterpool and another officer did not yield any developments.
The lack of progress has dispirited Ms. Turnbull, she said.
“It makes you feel hopeless,” she said, adding, “It’s like they’re not anywhere.”
Still, she has not given up on finding her son, who she described as private but happy, someone who often makes people smile despite sharing few words of his own.
“I’ll keep searching, keep praying, and I’m hoping that answer will come in some way,” Ms.Turnbull said.
“If we hear he’s on another island, we’re ready to jump in [a] plane and go and see if we can help.”
How to help
Anyone with relevant information can contact the police Intelligence Unit at 368-9339 or Ms. Turnbull at 499-8479.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the date that Allina Sprauve first contacted Virgin Islands Search and Rescue Operations Manager Phil Aspinall. It was Jan. 10, not Jan. 4.