Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

More than two months af­ter he went miss­ing, rel­a­tives of Blan­chisseuse res­i­dent Ore­on Gomez griev­ed for him on his 22nd birth­day on Mon­day.

There has been no trace of Gomez since he left his Morne La Croix home on Au­gust 26 to meet a woman with whom he be­came ac­quaint­ed on so­cial me­dia. Gomez and the woman were ex­pect­ed to vis­it a pop­u­lar eco re­sort in Ari­ma but nev­er ar­rived.

One of Gomez’s rel­a­tives, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said the fam­i­ly is still deeply sad­dened months af­ter his dis­ap­pear­ance. The rel­a­tive said that Gomez’s par­ents be­came very de­pressed in the days lead­ing up to his birth­day and the fam­i­ly is cling­ing to the hope that he is still alive. How­ev­er, they are strug­gling to re­main op­ti­mistic be­cause the amount of time that passed since he went miss­ing.

“The fam­i­ly isn’t the same since all of this hap­pened. I know through God mir­a­cles can be done and the fam­i­ly is hang­ing in there,” the rel­a­tive said.

“I haven’t giv­en up hope but I al­so have to be log­i­cal and re­al­is­tic in what could have hap­pened and it doesn’t look good for Ore­on.”

The rel­a­tive said fam­i­ly mem­bers reg­u­lar­ly up­date their so­cial me­dia ac­counts with pho­tos of Gomez and con­tin­ue to ap­peal for the pub­lic’s help to find him.

She said the fam­i­ly has not re­ceived any up­dates on the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Gomez’s dis­ap­pear­ance since Au­gust, but have for­giv­en the per­sons re­spon­si­ble for his dis­ap­pear­ance.

Re­fer­ring to a young woman who was im­pli­cat­ed in Gomez’s dis­ap­pear­ance but not ar­rest­ed, the rel­a­tive said she left judg­ment to God.

“I for­give them and they will have to an­swer for their deeds come Judg­ment Day. I may not be alive to see it but I be­lieve God will bless her and if she is guilty of any­thing she will have to face it,” she said

The rel­a­tive al­so urged par­ents to learn from Gomez’s sto­ry and sen­si­tise their chil­dren to the dan­gers of meet­ing strangers.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, po­lice said they could not di­vulge any in­for­ma­tion on how far the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has pro­gressed.