Farley urges Tobagonians to ‘look out for each other’, after mom, kids tragic deaths

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent – To­ba­go

Au­top­sies are ex­pect­ed to be per­formed at some time next week, on the bod­ies of Sarah Smith and her two chil­dren who were all found dead at the bot­tom of a de­com­mis­sioned WASA wa­ter tank in Par­latu­vi­er, To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Sarah Smith had not been an­swer­ing her phone and she was last seen on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2024.

There are claims that Smith was act­ing strange­ly, hear­ing things, and was seen walk­ing about naked.

Sarah Smith, 33, and her two chil­dren—one-year-old daugh­ter Phoenix, and three-year-old son Gen­uine—were said to be stay­ing in Par­latu­vi­er af­ter be­ing evict­ed from their home a week ear­li­er.  

They were found on Wednes­day night.

Their trag­ic end­ing has shocked the peo­ple of the sis­ter isle, in­clud­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, who says the sto­ry has left him “un­set­tled”.

Not­ing that the Par­latu­vi­er com­mu­ni­ty had in­di­cat­ed that Sarah Smith ap­peared to be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a men­tal de­cline, Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine urged com­mu­ni­ties to look out for each oth­er.

“It is un­for­tu­nate that we have peo­ple among us with fail­ing men­tal health, and peo­ple among us with chal­lenges that could be eas­i­ly re­solved if we are on­ly just neigh­bourly… If we of­fer love and sup­port to peo­ple,” he said.

He added: “I’m so sad­dened by the loss to the fam­i­ly, and I pray God that He will give strength to her rel­a­tives go­ing for­ward.”