Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go po­lice are treat­ing the deaths of Sarah Smith and her two chil­dren, Gen­uine and Phoenix, who were found dead in­side a de­com­mis­sioned Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty tank in Par­latu­vi­er, last month, as mur­der. 

An au­top­sy on Mon­day re­vealed they all died of blunt force trau­ma to their heads. 

ACP Os­wain Subero con­firmed that the mat­ter was now a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He told Guardian Me­dia, “Yes the post-mortem re­sults say it is blunt force trau­ma so we wait­ing to clear up that. If it is in line with a fall.

“We are await­ing just the clos­ing off of the post-mortem and then we will be able to say clear­ly what the po­si­tion is.”

Asked if the is­land’s mur­der toll has of­fi­cial­ly been up­dat­ed to 27 from 24, he said on Fri­day po­lice would make an of­fi­cial state­ment on this. 

Mean­while, the fa­ther of the chil­dren said not on­ly had Par­latu­vi­er failed Sarah and her chil­dren, but To­ba­go had ig­nored her cries for help. 

He said the au­top­sy which showed all three had sev­er­al in­juries to their heads mak­ing their faces al­most un­recog­nis­able, on­ly con­firmed his sus­pi­cion.

“All of them died from head in­jured. There is no way it’s from falling in the tank. It (has) to be from some­one who mur­der them. I will not stop say that. The per­son who did this should come out and say some­thing and make the fam­i­ly feel at ease. It’s not a nice feel­ing as a fa­ther. It was not sui­cide and that is my opin­ion.

“The peo­ple close to her over here know she’s miss­ing and didn’t come for­ward to make a re­port. It’s when they found her dead every­one de­cide to come out and say they hurt when she was miss­ing two weeks be­fore.

“I feel the whole com­mu­ni­ty be­hind this and they know what go­ing on but as they say, To­bag­o­ni­ans for To­bag­o­ni­ans.”

He said he was now left to pick up the pieces.

“I’m try­ing, be­cause since I see the state their bod­ies in, I can­not sleep. I didn’t ex­pect any­thing like this to hap­pen to me. But God gives the hard­est bat­tles to the strongest sol­diers. I’ll fight it.”

The bod­ies of Sarah and her chil­dren will leave To­ba­go this week. Due to the state of de­com­po­si­tion, they will be cre­mat­ed fol­low­ing a small closed-cas­ket cer­e­mo­ny in the com­ing days. 

The fam­i­ly now hopes no stone is left un­turned.