The family of Kerran Baker will on Friday mark two months since her disappearance, while continuing to wait, wonder and worry, calling yesterday for a renewed police effort.

“Please, I need more speed”, father Wilmot Anthony told iNews by a call from Kingston, Jamaica. “My family is getting weak. The wife and kids are not doing too well, and I have to be the strong one.

“Everybody asks me what is happening, what is going on, this and that, and I can’t answer. I can’t say anything,” he said wearily.

Officers from the Royal Cayman Islands Police had contacted him on Sunday, Mr Anthony said: “They told me the usual: We are still awaiting things, still investigating, awaiting forensic evidence.

“I am really frustrated,” he said. “It’s the same as we left it in Cayman.”

Ms Baker, 25, a nurse’s assistant in the office of Dr Ruthlyn Pomares, disappeared from her Arrow Drive, Bodden Town home on the evening of Saturday, 30 July. Police have been unable to track her, despite prolonged land and sea searches and interviews with dozens of contacts.

The only physical traces have been groceries and a handbag found in her home, her Honda Civic abandoned outside the Pedro St James carpark, her discarded car keys and a set of documents nearby. The last known sighting of Ms Baker was on Foster’s Food Fair closed-circuit television at 7pm, 30 July.

Both Ms Baker’s mother Sandra Anthony, father, Aunt Patsy and sister Toni-Anne spent weeks in Cayman, aiding police with enquiries and vowing to remain until she was located, but finally returned to Jamaica in despair.

“I am coping with the help of almighty God,’ said Ms Anthony yesterday, “and hoping and praying for a breakthrough. We have heard nothing.”

Both Mr and Mrs Anthony rejected rumours placing Ms Baker in Miami after fleeing the Cayman Islands overnight in a smuggler’s “canoe”, seeking to avoid an obsessive lover.

“Now that would be good news, but I haven’t heard that one,” Mrs Anthony said.

Mr Anthony echoed the sentiment: “I would be glad to hear she was alive, but she’s not that type of girl. I want to know what really happened. Why would she go to Miami? She’s got no visa. She doesn’t call us?

“There are a lot rumours spreading already and I just want this to stop. It’s cruel and it makes things more difficult. I don’t want to bother my wife with this because she’s not feeling too good. I want the police to re-focus,” he said.

Both parents acknowledged the violence swamping Cayman, and feared it would downgrade the search for their daughter.

“The crime wave is messing up a lot of things and has pushed Kerran into the back,” Mr Anthony said, lamenting the hiatus in the investigation.

“It needs to be put back into the public’s eye, and we need the police to speed things up. People are saying things to try and twist this, the police are still pleading for information and nobody is saying the right things,” he said.

A police spokesman said yesterday that the case remained active, although Detective Chief Inspector Mike Cranswick was away.

“The investigation continues. The matter is being pursued with the importance and alacrity it deserves. I know that forensics are being actively pursued but would not want to speculate on any potential outcomes,” said Chief Inspector Patrick Beersingh.

“Life moves on and the family is going to work and to school and getting on with things,” Mrs Anthony said.

Mr Anthony struck a more sombre note: “Patsy is in New York and Toni-Anne is back in school, but isn’t focusing like she’s supposed to. I’m not focusing either, on my transportation business. This is going too slow.

“The longer this is outstanding, the more damaging it is,” he said.