Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The rel­a­tives of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza are plan­ning a memo­r­i­al ser­vice in To­ba­go as they con­tin­ue to mourn his sus­pect­ed death.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, a cousin of An­ge­lo’s moth­er, Kali­fah To­bias, said a date for the ser­vice is yet to be fi­nalised.

An­ge­lo was re­port­ed miss­ing from his Cam­bridge Trace, Good­wood home on May 11.

De­spite ex­ten­sive search­es from var­i­ous state agen­cies and vol­un­teers, span­ning land and sea, the tod­dler’s body is yet to be found.

Po­lice con­firmed search­es for the child have been called off un­less new in­for­ma­tion sur­faces.

An­ge­lo’s step­fa­ther, Shan­non Miller, 24, has been charged with the child’s mur­der and has been re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody. He will next ap­pear in court on No­vem­ber 30.

To­bias had been de­tained along with Miller but has been re­leased on ad­vice by the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Asked how To­bias was do­ing, her cousin told Guardian Me­dia the young moth­er was try­ing her best to cope with the loss of her son.

She said the fam­i­ly is ral­ly­ing be­hind To­bias to en­sure she does not fall in­to a de­pres­sive state.

To­bias has de­ac­ti­vat­ed her Face­book page fol­low­ing on­line threats and at­tacks by mem­bers of the pub­lic.

She has al­so not re­turned to her home on Cam­bridge Trace since be­ing re­leased.

Good­wood vil­lagers have held vig­ils, a peace walk and an in­ter-faith ser­vice for An­ge­lo, which was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al mem­bers of the Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil. A To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ple­nary sit­ting last week fo­cused on the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren, with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine call­ing on To­bag­o­ni­ans to look in the mir­ror.

He said vil­lagers must take a vest­ed in­ter­est in what is hap­pen­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties and speak up when wrong­do­ing is sus­pect­ed.

The in­ci­dent has rocked the en­tire coun­try and sparked out­rage among many cit­i­zens.

A can­dle­light vig­il call­ing for jus­tice for An­ge­lo is sched­uled for 6 pm in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day.