Bunny Wailer’s Wife Still Missing After Almost Three Years
After almost three years, the search continues for Sister Jean, wife of the late Reggae Legend Bunny Wailer.
The five feet, three inches tall dreadlocked woman, who reportedly suffered from dementia, wandered away from home on May 23, 2020 and has not been seen or heard from since, despite a million-dollar cash reward being offered by concerned relatives.
In a recent interview with the Star, Sister Jean’s stepson Abijah Asadenaki Livingston revealed that in pulling out all the stops to recover the elderly woman, there are suspicions of foul play.
“We continue to search; no body has been discovered, so we are hopeful that Sis Jean is alive. One private investigator did suggest that there could be foul play … the underground people are saying that it look funny, like something gwaan … so he has been tracking to see what exactly happened on that day when she disappeared,” he said.
These sentiments were echoed as loved ones held an intimate gathering on Thursday (March 2) to commemorate his father’s memory. The real celebration, he said, will be a Rootsman Skanking concert next month.
Born Neville Livingston on April 10, 1947, Bunny died on March 2, two years ago, at 73 years old. The Trench Town native was in and out of hospital after suffering a second stroke in July 2020.
Later in March 2021, Livingston released a documentary titled “WAILnSOUL: Searching for Jean Watt, the wife of Bunny Wailer,” detailing the family’s pursuit of their matriarch and the challenges that they have encountered.
The documentary shows the last moments she was spotted leaving her home. That moment was captured on CCTV and she was last seen wearing a black top, brown skirt, and sandals.
In the meantime, Livingston has raised eyebrows at the circumstances surrounding his stepmother’s prolonged disappearance.
He told the Star that despite her ailment, she always had a recollection of who her husband was, which should have prompted lawmen to bring her home safely.
“If Sis Jean knows one thing, regardless of whether she is taking her medication consistently or not, is that she is Bunny Wailer’s wife. The time before this when she wandered away, that’s how the police knew to bring her back to the house. She told them that she was Bunny Wailer’s wife. So … this is very hard … it rough,” he said.
Bunny Wailer met Bob Marley as a child and the two would later go on to form The Wailers with Peter Tosh.
Bunny left the Wailers in 1973 to pursue a solo career when he became more focused on his faith. He identified with the Rastafari movement and was primarily focused on his roots style of music, which was in keeping with his often political and spiritual messages.
Bunny is a three-time Grammy Award winner and in 2017 received an Order of Merit (OM), the fourth-highest honor in Jamaica, for his contribution to popular music.
Marley died of cancer on May 11, 1981, while Tosh was killed at his St Andrew home on September 11, 1987.