Praying for a miracle

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Four more sus­pects have been de­tained by po­lice fol­low­ing a po­lice drag­net in Good­wood, To­ba­go, on Sun­day night, as the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­tin­ued to try to bring clo­sure to the case of miss­ing tod­dler An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza.

The string of ar­rests came min­utes af­ter Good­wood vil­lagers held a vig­il at Cam­bridge Trace on Sun­day night, ap­peal­ing for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion in the dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old child.

Apart from the tod­dler’s moth­er Kali­fah To­bias, 22, and her boyfriend Shan­non Miller, po­lice now have the dri­ver of a ve­hi­cle in cus­tody. The child’s moth­er and boyfriend have been in cus­tody since last Fri­day, while the oth­er sus­pects were round­ed up even as po­lice in­ten­si­fied the search for the miss­ing tod­dler on land and at sea.

Po­lice al­so in­ten­si­fied their search at the Stud­ley Park land­fill for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day yes­ter­day.

The search par­ty, which in­clud­ed po­lice of­fi­cers with the help of a ca­dav­er dog, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and mem­bers of the Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team, fo­cused on spe­cif­ic ar­eas of the land­fill, with an ex­ca­va­tor dig­ging up ar­eas iden­ti­fied.

An ex­ca­va­tor helped sift through tonnes of garbage in the dump, but de­spite hours of scour­ing the area, the child’s body could not be found by the end of yes­ter­day’s search ef­forts.

Hunters Search and Res­cue Team (HSRT) com­man­der Sham­sudeen Ayube said based on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, they con­verged on an area in the land­fill “where he was last seen.” The mem­bers vowed to con­tin­ue their ef­forts un­til he is found.

“We will go right through. We will not stop,” Ayube said.

Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, leader of the oth­er HSRT that was comb­ing the land­fill, said his team searched sev­er­al pits in the dump to no avail. He said his team al­so helped po­lice search oth­er lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Pem­broke. He said they will con­tin­ue to­day to com­plete a thor­ough sweep of that area.

The tod­dler was re­port­ed miss­ing from his sea­side home on May 11 and has not been lo­cat­ed since.

An­ge­lo’s moth­er and boyfriend told po­lice the tod­dler sud­den­ly went miss­ing from their home around 7.30 pm on May 11.

Po­lice have been try­ing to re­trace the last pub­lic sight­ing of An­ge­lo. Vil­lagers told Guardian Me­dia they did not see the child on the day he van­ished.

How­ev­er, the child was spot­ted with his moth­er in Scar­bor­ough on May 10 — Moth­er’s Day — ac­cord­ing to a rel­a­tive of Miller.

The in­ci­dent has shocked To­ba­go, with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine tak­ing to so­cial me­dia on Sun­day to voice his anger over the slow pace of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He said the pub­lic is now de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty in the mat­ter, as “some­thing does not sit right with the na­tion­al con­science.”

“The pub­lic out­rage and heart­break now be­ing ex­pressed across To­ba­go and Trinidad are jus­ti­fied. We have a right to be damn vex about how this is un­fold­ing and the Nan­cy sto­ries that are be­ing ped­dled,” Au­gus­tine said.

Mean­while, mem­bers of the qui­et Good­wood com­mu­ni­ty where the tod­dler’s fam­i­ly lives raised their voic­es in song and il­lu­mi­nat­ed can­dles on Sun­day night, as they called for God to shine a light wher­ev­er the child might be.

As the vig­il end­ed around 9 pm, how­ev­er, the flick­er of their can­dles was re­placed by blue flash­ing lights as po­lice swooped in­to the com­mu­ni­ty and ar­rest­ed a male sus­pect.

An­oth­er sus­pect briefly elud­ed of­fi­cers as they closed in, but he was ap­pre­hend­ed lat­er that night.

The dri­ver of a ve­hi­cle, be­lieved to be a cru­cial piece in the puz­zle to find­ing out what hap­pened to lit­tle An­ge­lo, was al­so de­tained be­fore day­break. A fe­male sus­pect is be­lieved to al­so be among those held that night. An­ge­lo’s moth­er and boyfriend were first to be de­tained by po­lice on Fri­day af­ter­noon in Good­wood.

Good­wood Vil­lage Coun­cil pres­i­dent Wendy Des Vi­gnes says prayers are need­ed to “break this curse” that has be­fall­en the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It is like this is a curse. We want to break this curse be­fore it hap­pens again,” Des Vi­gnes said dur­ing the can­dle­light vig­il in the com­mu­ni­ty for An­ge­lo on Sun­day night.

“We want to get in touch with God be­cause it seems to me the peo­ple of this is­land los­ing touch with God. We have to beg for mer­cy and help.”

She said An­ge­lo’s moth­er, be­fore she was tak­en in­to cus­tody, spec­u­lat­ed that her son may have been ab­duct­ed.

Des Vi­gnes said she was not judg­ing the moth­er, as she does not have all the an­swers.

“We want to pray and get in touch with God in a way where we could pe­ti­tion for this child to be found. We can­not give up.”

She added, “Some­thing like this, we just hop­ing and pray­ing we find the child — and if we find him alive then that will be bet­ter.”

Bap­tist pas­tor and Vil­lage Coun­cil deputy Bri­an Patrick said the com­mu­ni­ty and the na­tion was hurt­ing over the miss­ing child.

He said, “It is re­al­ly a com­mu­ni­ty is­sue we are fac­ing. Every­one is hurt­ing and the is­land and the na­tion as well.

“It’s a long week for us in the vil­lage, es­pe­cial­ly the moth­ers and the fa­thers. We re­al­ly want to bring some clo­sure to this.”