Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Emo­tions re­main high in Good­wood af­ter Shan­non Miller, the step­fa­ther of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza, was charged with the child’s mur­der.

Vil­lagers are ques­tion­ing why oth­er per­sons of in­ter­est have not been charged and re­main con­cerned about the prospects of a con­vic­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the tod­dler’s body has not yet been re­cov­ered.

The ten­sions came as an in­ter­faith ser­vice was held yes­ter­day at Cam­bridge Trace, Good­wood, where re­li­gious lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers called for calm, for­give­ness and an end to re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence.

Bap­tist preach­er Nicole Thomas urged res­i­dents not to al­low anger to fu­el fur­ther con­flict, warn­ing that the com­mu­ni­ty must re­sist be­com­ing hard­ened by grief.

“Let us not al­low our own self­ish think­ing to cause us to cre­ate crime and con­tin­ue the cy­cle. It has to end right here,” she said, adding that To­ba­go must re­turn to faith and prayer as a foun­da­tion for heal­ing.

Her re­marks came a day af­ter Miller, 24, was charged in con­nec­tion with the child’s mur­der. An­ge­lo’s moth­er, Kali­fah To­bias, who was pre­vi­ous­ly de­tained along with her part­ner on May 15, has since been re­leased. Five oth­er per­sons of in­ter­est ar­rest­ed in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion were al­so freed.

The child was re­port­ed miss­ing on May 11, trig­ger­ing a mul­ti-agency search ef­fort across To­ba­go.

The case has left deep di­vi­sions in Good­wood, with ris­ing ten­sions be­tween res­i­dents and mem­bers of An­ge­lo’s fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing ver­bal and phys­i­cal con­fronta­tions. Ten­sion was al­so re­port­ed dur­ing yes­ter­day’s ser­vice be­tween a fam­i­ly mem­ber and a vil­lager.

Thomas said To­ba­go must avoid al­low­ing grief to es­ca­late in­to fur­ther harm.

“We are here to re­claim what the dev­il has stolen from Good­wood,” she said, while urg­ing res­i­dents to sup­port on­go­ing night­ly vig­ils in the com­mu­ni­ty.

She al­so en­cour­aged res­i­dents to take a more proac­tive role in ad­dress­ing trou­bling be­hav­iour with­in com­mu­ni­ties and to seek guid­ance be­fore in­ter­ven­ing.

Pri­or to the ser­vice, res­i­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed in a peace walk from Scar­bor­ough to Good­wood.

As­sem­bly­man Wane Clarke, who as­sist­ed with trans­port dur­ing the walk, said the tragedy had per­son­al res­o­nance for him.

“To­day we know it is about lit­tle An­ge­lo, but to­mor­row it could be about you and I,” Clarke said. “We have to get in­volved be­cause this is a cause for all of us.”

He al­so called for greater pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion on avail­able sup­port ser­vices, in­clud­ing coun­selling.

“We are a so­ci­ety that does not be­lieve coun­selling is im­por­tant. That is some­thing we must em­pha­sise to build hu­man ca­pac­i­ty,” he said.

Govin­da Ram­lo­gan, PRO of the To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety, said the in­ter­faith gath­er­ing demon­strat­ed that there is still hope for To­ba­go de­spite the tragedy.

He said the loss of the child was deeply dis­tress­ing and called for jus­tice to take its course.

“No one should take away some­one else’s life. We leave it in the hands of the Lord and the jus­tice sys­tem,” he said.

In­fra­struc­ture Sec­re­tary Nathisha Charles-Pan­tin, who was among sev­er­al To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the ser­vice, said the in­ci­dent has shak­en the is­land com­mu­ni­ty.

She al­so ex­pressed hope that An­ge­lo might still be found alive.

In a state­ment, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hill Kirk praised in­ves­tiga­tive teams and part­ner agen­cies in­volved in the search and in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­clud­ing the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency, Hunters Search and Res­cue, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force, vol­un­teer divers, res­i­dents, and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

“I know To­ba­go is griev­ing. It was a te­dious two weeks for the po­lice. We have been crit­i­cised, but at the end of the day we did what we need­ed to do with­in the frame­work of the law,” he said.