Strangled and dumped at sea

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Af­ter nine days of search­ing land and sea for two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza, po­lice say a sus­pect has con­fessed to mur­der­ing the child and dis­pos­ing of the body at sea.

The tod­dler was re­port­ed miss­ing from his Good­wood home around 7.30 pm on May 11.

Af­ter des­per­ate search­es at the Stud­ley Park land­fill and Pig Farm Road, Golds­bor­ough, for nine days turned up emp­ty-hand­ed, cops re­turned yes­ter­day to where it all be­gan — An­ge­lo’s home on Cam­bridge Trace.

Po­lice said a close male rel­a­tive con­fessed to stran­gling the child and throw­ing his body in­to the sea.

The sus­pect was tak­en to Cam­bridge Trace yes­ter­day around 8 am af­ter he gave in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers key ev­i­dence on the child’s dis­ap­pear­ance. He was lat­er whisked away as po­lice cor­doned off the area lead­ing to the child’s home to re­fo­cus their search for the child.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors were at the sea­side home yes­ter­day evening pro­cess­ing the scene as they con­tin­ued to build ev­i­dence in their case and hope­ful­ly find clues which may some­how guide them to find­ing the child.

The tod­dler’s moth­er was brought to the scene then as well, to help po­lice piece to­geth­er some of the new in­for­ma­tion they had gath­ered.

Four men and three women had been in po­lice cus­tody over An­ge­lo’s dis­ap­pear­ance, but Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the ma­jor­i­ty of sus­pects were re­leased.

Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Team cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat said his unit was on stand­by yes­ter­day, af­ter they were ini­tial­ly told that the main sus­pect was to be brought to the child’s home to give fur­ther ev­i­dence that may have helped the search teams lo­cate the child’s re­mains. How­ev­er, he said the sus­pect lat­er com­plained of feel­ing ill and was tak­en to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

The team com­man­der, Sham­sudeen Ayub, said there was a sense of re­lief that the sus­pect had fi­nal­ly be­gun to co­op­er­ate with po­lice.

“Let’s hope the in­for­ma­tion he shared with po­lice is ac­cu­rate so the fam­i­ly can get clo­sure and the coun­try at large,” he said.

Ayube said the coun­try has been on edge and trau­ma­tised over the sit­u­a­tion.

As news spread of a con­fes­sion, sor­row­ful vil­lagers gath­ered in the com­mu­ni­ty and de­mand­ed jus­tice.

Good­wood Vil­lage Coun­cil ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Wendy Des Vi­gnes praised the po­lice for their dili­gent work, but said she want­ed to see An­ge­lo’s body.

“When I ac­tu­al­ly see the body — dead or alive — then I will know jus­tice is be­ing served. There is noth­ing to re­joice about. I am hop­ing that this lit­tle child will sur­face,” Des Vi­gnes said.

An emo­tion­al Agnes Al­leyne, 87, the ma­tri­arch of Good­wood, said she was ap­palled by the vi­o­lence with­in her com­mu­ni­ty. She told the me­dia she would have glad­ly adopt­ed An­ge­lo, whom she saw reg­u­lar­ly when he en­tered her su­per­mar­ket with his moth­er. She de­scribed him as a very sweet child.

“I have nev­er seen such a thing in my life. It hurt me. I see my food, I can’t even eat my food when I heard that this boy con­fess,” Al­leyne said.

“It hurt me very, very much, to know that very sweet boy (was mur­dered). Why they didn’t bring that child and give me? I would have adopt the child if they didn’t want the child. Sad, sad sit­u­a­tion.”

She lament­ed a break­down in par­ent­ing in the vil­lage.

“The par­ents nowa­days, some par­ents don’t know how to bring up chil­dren.”

She re­called hir­ing a young land­scap­er, who brought his child to the job site and was smok­ing cig­a­rettes and drink­ing al­co­hol around the mi­nor.

“What kind of thing is this go­ing on with par­ents and chil­dren? Bring up your chil­dren in the right way,” she said.

Al­leyne said it will take time for Good­wood to heal from this tragedy.

Pem­broke na­tive Chan­da Jer­ry, who has been in Good­wood dai­ly pray­ing for An­ge­lo’s safe re­turn, said it was im­por­tant that they be the voice of An­ge­lo.

Jer­ry and Good­wood vil­lagers held a can­dle­light vig­il on Sun­day and again held a prayer ses­sion on Mon­day, de­spite An­ge­lo’s fam­i­ly not en­dors­ing the events.

She said, “Even though I was chas­tised for what I am do­ing...I wan­na thank God for stand­ing with me that they did not stop me from do­ing what He called me to do.

“I get plen­ty licks on Face­book for it, but I stood strong be­cause I know I was fight­ing for a good cause.”

Good­wood vil­lager Bind­ley De Coteaux said every par­ent in the area feels sad­dened by the sit­u­a­tion.

“It is very dis­heart­en­ing to know some­thing like this could hap­pen to a tod­dler,” he said.

He urged the pub­lic to give the po­lice time to do their job, as they are the ones trained to han­dle these sit­u­a­tions.

The search for An­ge­lo’s body en­ters day ten to­day.

Time­line of ba­by An­ge­lo’s dis­ap­pear­ance

May 11: Two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza was re­port­ed miss­ing from his Good­wood, To­ba­go home around 7.30 pm. Po­lice and res­i­dents launched overnight search­es.

May 12: Land and sea search­es in­ten­si­fied. A res­i­dent re­port­ed­ly saw what ap­peared to be the child’s body in the sea, but it dis­ap­peared be­fore re­cov­ery ef­forts could suc­ceed.

May 13 to 14: Po­lice ques­tioned close rel­a­tives and ex­pand­ed search­es us­ing ma­rine teams and drones.

May 15: Search op­er­a­tions en­tered a fourth day with no break­through. Vig­ils were held in the com­mu­ni­ty.

May 16: Pub­lic con­cern grew as res­i­dents and rel­a­tives called for an­swers and jus­tice. Po­lice de­tained An­ge­lo’s moth­er and her boyfriend and ar­rest­ed a third sus­pect.

May 17: To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said “some­thing not right” sur­round­ed the case. Even as vil­lagers were stag­ing a vig­il, po­lice ar­rest­ed four more sus­pects af­ter raids in the com­mu­ni­ty.

May 18: In­ves­ti­ga­tors searched the Stud­ley Park land­fill based on in­tel­li­gence leads, but found no trace of the tod­dler.

May 20: Po­lice re­port­ed a ma­jor break­through af­ter a male rel­a­tive al­leged­ly con­fessed to in­volve­ment in An­ge­lo’s dis­ap­pear­ance. Of­fi­cers took the sus­pect to the fam­i­ly’s Good­wood home as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­ten­si­fied.

Cur­rent sta­tus: An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza re­mains miss­ing as po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.