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For days, Derrick Rodgers roamed the streets of Clarendon, knocking on doors, asking strangers, piecing together clues, and refusing to give up on his missing daughter.

Yesterday, five days after her disappearance, his relentless search ended in heartbreak when he unearthed the body of 20-year-old Derricka Rodgers, stuffed inside a pit at an unfinished house in Milk River in the parish.

"Mi did a hope and pray fi find her alive," the father told THE STAR yesterday.

Derricka, a young print shop worker and the eldest of four daughters, had been reported missing on Tuesday, May 27. Her disappearance stunned those closest to her.

According to the police, Derricka was last seen at her Piper Street, Gravel Hill, Clarendon, home around 11 a.m. When she failed to respond to calls, her family's concern deepened.

"Any weh she deh and yuh call her, she a guh answer. If she nuh answer yuh same time, she a guh return the call," her father said.

"When me see me nah get no response from her, me seh, 'no, something wrong'."

Like an expert sleuth, Derrick said he spared no efforts in trying to find his daughter. Yesterday, acting on tips, he went to a yard in Milk River where he saw two septic pits, one of which arose his suspicion.

"When wi just find the house mi see two manhole. One cover up and the other one just deh, deh," he told THE STAR. "The one weh cover up, it look like it a work pan. From yuh look pan it yuh see seh it tamper wid."

"The person responsible fi the place call the owner, she live a farrin, and she say a bout four years since dem work pan the manhole."

At that point he expressed his desire to have it checked and the owner, who is based overseas, told him through a caretaker that he will have to bear the cost to repair any damage that results from the inspection.

Derrick agreed.

"A so come people come start help, and when we look is a body bag. From dem take it out and mi see the crocs me know a mi daughter. Dem start take out everything else. Her bag did in deh wid her purse, her ID everything," the distraught father related.

He described the heartbreak of realising she was gone, his first daughter, the eldest among four girls.

"A mi first daughter," he said. "Mi daughter nuh give talking, she always a smile."

Rodgers recalled the last time he saw his daughter.

"Tuesday when she go weh, me see her a May Pen a wait pan a taxi," he said quietly. And his voice broke as he remembered their final conversation on Labour Day: "Me have one juice and she seh she want it, and me a joke seh she nah get it."

The discovery of Derricka' remains marks the second time in recent weeks that the search for a missing woman has ended in tragedy. Last month, police revealed that skeletal remains found along a beach in Portmore, St Catherine, are believed to be those of missing University of Technology student Anisa Dilworth. She had been reported missing on May 7.

In another chilling case, the body of eight-year-old Navardo Blackburn was found last week in the trunk of a car -- four days after he was reported missing. His body was already in an advanced state of decomposition.