Dismembered Body of Roaring Creek Resident Recovered from Belize River

Edilberto Madrid

A gruesome killing in the Valley of Peace Road, Cayo has left a family devastated and shaken up. They can’t say why Edilberto Madrid was gruesomely murdered in a neighborhood where he was well-known. The Roaring Creek resident and tattoo artist has been charged for Attempted Murder, Kept Unlicensed Firearm and Ammunition, among other charges, and he had also been fingered in a string of robberies. He was also the right hand of Russell Hyde, whose wife was shot and killed as she travelled in a car last week. Madrid was reported missing by his family on Sunday and today, his body was discovered. He had been hacked to death.  Andrea Polanco was in Valley of Peace to find out more on this latest killing in the west. Here’s her story.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

Two days after he went missing, twenty-eight-year-old Edilberto Madrid’s mutilated body was discovered in the Belize River, here off the Valley of Peace Road, just below the Agripino Cawich Bridge. The family’s fears were realized today.

Voice of: Julie Fernandez, Common-law Wife

“On Sunday morning around seven or seven thirty was the last time he left from this exact location. He went to visit his sister at the back and I texted and texted and he did not answer. And all day I call and call and no answer and I decided to go home after half an hour of trying to reach him.”

Andrea Polanco

“When you were unable to reach him, did you think that perhaps something happened to him?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“Yes. I waited all night thinking he would come home and he didn’t come home. I asked at the police station if he was detained and he wasn’t detained. I decided to do a missing person’s report and later the day we did a search to go and look around the area for his body.”

Madrid went missing after he left from this shop. He never reached his destination that morning – which was just about a block and a half away. It’s a populated area, but according to his sister, no one saw or heard anything that day. They found semblance of closure around eleven today.

Maria Banner, Sister of the deceased

“Yesterday was my mother’s birthday and we were expecting him to reach. But he never went there.”

Andrea Polanco

“Do you believe he was killed in this same area, around where his body was found?”

Maria Banner

Maria Banner

“Yes, ma’am. He came here at exactly the same spot to bring something for my sister. He left here to go to my house just across the road and it was from here to there that he gone missing.”

Andrea Polanco

“So, he never showed up at your house?”

Maria Banner

“No, ma’am.”

Andrea Polanco

“Did anyone notice anything or anything strange in the area that morning?”

Maria Banner

“No ma’am. I asked a few of my neighbors and they told me that no they didn’t see him so we continued looking but to no avail.”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“We went and we searched, searched, searched for about three hours and nothing. We decided to come back to the area where he went missing and we went along the river bank and that’s where we saw the white thing in the water stuck beside the branches.”

Madrid had been butchered. Decapitated, disemboweled and dismembered. Two men in a dory pulled in the body closer to the river bank where it was covered in this yellow tarp. What’s left of him was almost unrecognizable, except for tattoos.

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“Body parts were missing. We only recognized him due to the tattoos on his body.”

Andrea Polanco

“Body parts, including his head?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“Yes, ma’am.”

Andrea Polanco

“Was he found nude?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“Yes.”

And while the family acknowledges that Madrid had a colorful past, they never imagined he would meet such a brutal end.

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“No, he wasn’t receiving any message. He was well known in the village. He is well known to everybody. He is honestly not a saint in the area. Everybody knows him. I know he personally has a lot of enemies but right now I can’t say anything about who would want to do this.”

Andrea Polanco

“When you heard that he went missing, did you ever think that this is what you would find today?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“No, ma’am I never expect it that way.”

Andrea Polanco

“And you guys haven’t heard if it’s a retaliation for anything, or perhaps someone had beef with him? Anything at all?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“No, ma’am not that I could say. Not that I could say. I know he had several run in with the law but that’s about it.”

Andrea Polanco

“Nothing that you’d think he would get killed over?”

Voice of: Julie Fernandez

“No, ma’am.”

Reporting for News Five, I am Andrea Polanco.