Mid-Afternoon Murder – Victor Garnett is Executed on Sibun Street

Victor Garnett

There is more bloodshed in the Old Capital and there appears to be a pattern. In today’s murder, as in three recent homicides, the suspected gunmen are all minors.  This afternoon, a well-known street figure was shot and killed as he sat in his vehicle in a hotspot of south side Belize City. Victor Garnett recently moved to the City from San Pedro Ambergris Caye where he was living dangerously and accused of at least three murders. While he was acquitted of the homicides; the speculation is that his past come back to haunt him. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Thirty-five year old Victor Garnett was killed around two this afternoon on Sibun Street near the Ghost Town gang territory in south side Belize City. Garnett was behind the steering wheel of this black pickup waiting to meet someone when at least two youngsters approached him and fired two shots in his direction. He was caught on the head and died on the spot; the ignition of his vehicle was still running.

ACP Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“From what we are seeing, it appears as if he was in that area waiting for somebody and that person or persons might have met him and eventually inflicted the gunshot wounds that he sustained, which subsequently resulted in his demise.”

Garnett is no stranger to the police. He along with Brionne Swift, Frank Edwards, and Gabriel Salazar were charged for the June 2009 double murder of James Swan and Edward Gutierrez twenty miles north of San Pedro in a drug deal gone sour. In 2012, however, they were acquitted of the crime by Justice Herbert Lord.

Chester Williams

ACP Chester Williams

“The victim is one Garnett from San Pedro. He was in San Pedro and apparently he moved to Belize City recently. I guess you people would be familiar with him; he has been charged for three murders in San Pedro—a double murder and another murder.”

So what could have been the motive for the murder of the fisherman?

ACP Chester Williams

“As investigators, we try to keep every possibility open. When we conduct investigations, we try to leave no stones unturned; so that is a possibility we are looking at. We are also looking at a possibility of gang retaliation as a result of those murders that he had been accused of. And from our investigation that we have gathered so far, the suspect is a teenager who came out of a yard and fired shots at him….two teenagers actually, came out of a yard and fired at him and eventually caught him in the head and that was the fatal injury.”

Special Branch, CIB, Uniformed Police officers as well as members from the Gang Suppression Unit were on the scene conducting searches because information is that the gunmen may have disposed of the murder weapon in the area. But could this last homicide have been averted?

ACP Chester Williams

“Earlier during the day we had received certain information and the police had responded to the information and those persons who were involved in that information, upon seeing the police coming took off and they were not caught by the police. The police remained in the area patrolling and like I said, the police cannot stay in one area; the police have to move around and apparently they took advantage of the opportunity to have committed the crime.”

Duane Moody for News Five.