A Florida family is searching for answers after their daughter was detained in Turks and Caicos for having ammunition in her suitcase — something her loved ones say “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Sharitta Grier was arrested earlier this month after ammunition was found in her luggage during a routine search at the Howard Hamilton International Airport on the island of Providenciales.
“I couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘Not Rita. Come on now, anybody but Rita,’” Willie Jean Lucas, Sharitta’s mother, told Spectrum News 13.
The Orlando native was found May 13 with two bullets in her luggage, a crime punishable by a minimum of 12 years in prison. Grier is also the fifth person to be arrested on the charge in recent weeks.
“I’m still in shock, because when I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe that out of all the people in the world that Sharitta would be one that they would put behind bars,” Sharitta’s aunt Wylene White said.
Grier’s mother said her daughter didn’t want to go, but went anyway as the trip was to celebrate Mother’s Day.
Her family also says they have no idea how she came to possess ammunition, which was found in her luggage as she was leaving the island.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense due to the fact that she was coming home and she gets stopped, and for the reasoning and for them to hold her like that, it doesn’t make sense,” family member Rose Willix said.
Grier is currently out on bond and staying at an Airbnb, her family said. She is scheduled to appear before a judge on July 5.
“She’s coming home. I have faith that she’s coming home. I believe that we go through storms to make us better. She’s just going through a storm,” her aunt said.
