A woman from Antigua who disappeared more than three decades ago during a trip abroad has finally returned home, thanks to a Facebook message that led to her astonishing reunion with family.
“Hi, it’s Denise.” That brief message, sent almost two years ago, changed everything for relatives of Denise Charles, who had been presumed dead since 1992.
Charles, now 56, is originally from Gray’s Farm. She was in her 20s when she disappeared during what was meant to be a short vacation with friends. For 32 years, her family had no idea of her whereabouts but presumed that she had died.
That changed on Tuesday morning, when she returned to Antigua on a private charter flight, that landed at VC Bird International Airport and which had been arranged by the Venezuelan government.
Watson, who was just 11 years old when his aunt disappeared, recounted the long and emotional journey that brought her back to their family.
According to the nephew, Charles had initially travelled to a Caribbean island south of Antigua and Barbuda before ending up in South America under mysterious and difficult circumstances.
“She end up in a country that she don’t speak their language and people don’t speak her language,” he said.
Watson said his aunt was either stranded or possibly held hostage in a poor Venezuelan community for many years and was eventually taken in by a church group in Venezuela, after she fell ill. They nursed her back to health and offered her a place to stay.
Over time, Denise learned to speak Spanish and gradually tried to reconnect with her past. Using limited resources, she began searching online for family members she could remember.
In 2023, she managed to send a Facebook message to one of her aunts, but it was initially ignored, as the family believed it to be a scam.
“Everybody thought that she died because that was since like 1992. So, when my aunt see the message she ignore it,” Watson said.
It wasn’t until earlier this year that Watson took a closer look and was able to confirm the identity of the woman messaging them.
In February, a conversation between him and another aunt raised memories of Denise, which led Watson to investigate the message once more. “I took the phone, had a look on the message … and tried to message her on Messenger [app] and was not getting nothing.”
He said he then decided to befriend one of two people Denise had as friends on Facebook. He did not get an initial response but a few weeks later that person responded in Spanish. He said the communication was slow and it took an additional two weeks for the woman to reply to his follow-up message. Finally, he got word that his long-lost aunt had been living in a church camp.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, Watson and his uncle reached out to government ministers and ultimately secured help from Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who personally intervened to facilitate her return.
Watson described the journey to Venezuela as both “scary” and emotional. The language barrier and complex immigration process posed challenges, but they managed to overcome them with government support and the help of a local contact in Caracas.
“It was a task, more like a mission and we get through good. We went and pick her up and bring her back,” Watson said.
Charles is currently receiving medical attention and taking time to readjust after what her family says was a traumatic ordeal. Watson noted that she was deeply emotional when recounting her story to them and that she may be willing to share her experience publicly in the near future.
For now, her family is simply grateful to have her home.
“She feels good, we feel good, the whole family feels good,” Watson said.
