THE father of the teenager who died in an accident on the West Coast Berbice public road on Tuesday night last has been missing for the past four days.

Alfred Branche, 62, of McKenzie Street Rosignol, West Bank Berbice was driving the wagon at the time it collided with a parked vehicle on the # 29 Public Road resulting in the death of his daughter Yonette, 16.
Relatives told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that the man had been continuously distraught and inconsolable after the accident.
“He cried all the time. He kept blaming himself for the accident. He kept saying that it was he who had killed his daughter and we couldn’t get him to stop blaming himself,” another daughter Shonette said.
Branche is self-employed as a taxi driver and is a popular resident of Rosignol.
His daughter Shonette said that her father left home around 08:00hrs on Christmas Eve day unknown to her and the rest of the family.
A resident of Rosignol subsequently informed the family that he had seen the missing sexagenarian heading into the backdam/wooded area behind Rosignol earlier in the day.
He was wearing a blue shirt, dark blue jeans, soft yatching shoes and was bareheaded.
A search party hastily put together, combed the bushes but found no trace of the missing man.
The relatives made a report to the Police on Christmas Day and search parties of villagers have been combing the backdam on a daily basis since then, but without any success up to late yesterday afternoon.
Relatives have also placed an advertisement on Berbice Television asking for public assistance in locating him.
Yonette Branche, 16, was a student of the New Amsterdam Multilateral School who had gone with her parents to uplift a barrel and two boxes of gifts sent to her by her aunt who lives overseas.
The family had collected the items in Georgetown and were on their way home around 20:00hrs on Tuesday December 23 when the wagon driven by her father Alfred collided with a parked Canter on the side of the road at # 29 village, West Coast Berbice.
Reports suggested that the older Blanche had been dazzled by the lights of an incoming vehicle and had pulled into the corner without seeing the vehicle parked alongside the road.
A post mortem done on Yonette Branche yesterday found that she had died from massive head injuries.
The family have made plans for a funeral on Tuesday but are now in the grips of an additional source of distress due to the disappearance of the head of the household.
The family can be contacted by anyone who may have any information on the whereabouts of the missing man on telephone numbers 330 2816 or 626 0178

(By Clifford Stanley)