By MERRICK ANDREWS, St. Lucia News Online staff
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Cecil Pilgrim
(St. Lucia News Online) — The family members of a man, who was found deceased at a residence in Grass Street, Castries early this morning, are angry over the fact that they found out about his death after seeing a photo of his nude and lifeless body on a popular Saint Lucia Facebook group.
The deceased has been identified as 52-year-old Cecil Chery Pilgrim who was found hanging sometime between 6 and 7:50 a.m.
A post mortem conducted today revealed that he died of asphyxia secondary to hanging, police said.
The man’s sister, Angel Chery, who lives in Barbados, said Cecil lived with his 13-year-old daughter who found his body and called a neighbour.
However, she said the family is particularly concerned and angry over the fact that they got news about the death after her brother’s body was posted on the Facebook page under the caption: “Are people getting fed up and stressed out with the situation in the country at the moment so they are starting to commit suicide. I hope not.”
“As a citizen in Barbados, I’m pleading for help into investigations why my brother will hang himself in St. Lucia when speaking to him was so normal. Pleading for help to understand why pictures going around and we didn’t even know… to help us. Some page now posted his picture hanging. My family hearts hurt,” she said in an email to St. Lucia News Online.
The dead man’s sister has since confronted, on social media, the person who posted the photo.
She posted an expletive-laced message on her Facebook timeline and called out the person, purportedly a male individual based in the United Kingdom, for posting the photo. Her message was accompanied by a screenshot of the individual’s Facebook profile page. (Our newsroom edited the message below)
“Dear *****, tell me why you think it’s *** okay to take my deceased’s brother pic of him hanging himself and posting it on social media without even knowing if any of his *** relatives know, you heartless ****…… I don’t normally do this but why is it every *** wanna think it’s okay to post …..”
Police said they responded to the scene at 7:50 a.m.
Added to the sister’s headache is that she and other relatives overseas may not see her brother buried due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“I really don’t know how we will cope because we can’t get there because of corona,” she said.
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