A woman’s relentless search for the truth has resulted in her deceased father’s 32-year marriage to a woman being annulled by the High Court for bigamy.
Marlene Stuart spent two years searching St Vincent for the man who she discovered was also married to her stepmother Coral Blackman-Stuart.
That man, Ean Hamblett, married Blackman in St Vincent on February 14, 1992, before she left him and returned to Barbados and married Carlton Stuart on March 9, 1992.
After locating Hamblett through a private investigator and securing his affidavit, Stuart produced it to the court and on February 23, High Court judge Justice Fiona Hinds upheld the application and ordered that the marriage between Carlton Wingrove Stuart and Coral Anita Stuart née Blackman, “solemnised
on the 9th day of March 1992 in the island of Barbados, be declared null and void under Section 31 of the Family Law Act and Section 5 of the Marriage Act”.
The ruling was made in absentia of Blackman who resides in New Jersey, United States, but who the court noted “failed to enter an appearance or file a defence to the claim”.
Carlton died in 2018 in New York.
A relieved but overjoyed Stuart told a Nation team that the ruling had essentially put a halt to the sale of two million-dollar properties which her father owned in the US and also would allow his six children to have a stake in his estate.
She recalled that her father, whom she described as “wealthy”, met Blackman, who was 22 years his junior, while she was walking along Baxters Road and instantly fell in love with her. However, she said it was back in 2018 when her father passed away that a close family member confided in her that Blackman may not have been legally married to him since she also had a husband in St Vincent.
“He told me not to let her get her hands on my father’s properties,” Stuart said. “I didn’t pay it no mind at first, but then I met one of her family members and they told me, yes, that she’s married to a Vincentian but they can’t remember his last name.”
Stuart flew to St Vincent in 2022, seeking the husband. However, the trip was unsuccessful as she still did not have a surname.
So she returned to Barbados and decided to hire a private investigator in St Vincent.
That paid off. The investigator located Hamblett, as well as the marriage certificate and the legal process of getting the marriage annulled began in earnest.
However, that was not the end. Stuart reported that she also had to travel to the US as Blackman was in the process of selling off the two houses – one at 815 Lincoln Place, NY, for US$1 670 700, and the other at 821 Lincoln Place for US$1 691 000.
“I had to hire a lawyer and we went to court in New York to stop the sale, but the court told me that I had to bring the proof from Barbados that she was a bigamist. I went to the police in New York and made a report against her and they sent me to the police in Jersey. I had to take out advertisements in the paper in New York and Barbados. Nobody knows where she is but she had a lawyer who was dealing with the sale of the properties.”
Choking back tears, Stuart said she also considered giving up as she had already spent thousands of dollars and was running out of money.
“At one point I had to put the investigation on hold because I ran out of money, but my lawyer in the US told me not to give up, that I had worked so hard and I should continue,” she said, pointing out that she also received written permission from her siblings authorising her to act on their behalf.
While there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel for her, Stuart said the situation was still bittersweet as her father died not knowing that the woman he loved was also married to someone else.
“My father really loved that woman. He loved the dirt, the rock, the mud, everything, but they were separated for about ten years before he died. She had moved on,” Stuart charged.
“When my father was sick, I was the one who looked after him when he was in Kings County Hospital and he gave me power of attorney over his affairs. But when he died, Coral turned up and claimed his body because they were not divorced. She buried my father in a private burial and we did not even know where it was taking place.”
The fight is not over as Stuart said she now had to determine who removed thousands of dollars from her father’s accounts in the US and also who took his jewellery. She added that she and her siblings would also now move forward to secure his assets.
