Stabbed 17 times, left to die in drain
Residents of Belize City woke up this morning to the sight of a corpse lying in the drain…and it wasn’t a case of death by natural causes. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports on the nation’s latest murder.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Thirty-three year old William Staine was a car wash man who loved to whistle and was often seen carrying his yellow bucket on his way to work. But early this morning the plastic container was found just a short distance away from Staines’ mutilated body. He was lying face down in a drain one block from where he lived with his family. Althea Neal believes there is only one reason why her son was murdered.
Althea Neal, Mother of Deceased
“I feel my son know something, that’s why they killed him. Because he dah noh a person that chance (take advantage of) people. You wah always see him come with a bucket di whistle. Sometimes I rail up with ah as a mother and he would seh, Ma, I still love you. Noh care what hour he come and knock at that door, I open that door and mek he goh in. He has a style that he lay down on the floor and wake up in the morning he get up and watch TV and he go again.”
Neal would not say what information her son had, but that she suspects he was abducted shortly after he left the house around eleven last night and then taken to a location where he was killed and then his body dumped in a drain at the corner of McKay and Mahogany streets.
Althea Neal
“I feel like they take my son and torture my son. And when they done, I fell that dah dash ah deh. Because inna this neighbourhood my son got a big mouth and inna this neighbourhood my son could fight. And if dah anything, somebody mi wah hear because where they find ah, the person noh hear nothing. And the person dah his friend too, so somebody will mi wah see, neighbours will mi wah see, because a lee noise and people look out.”
Police would not confirm the report, but sources tell News 5 that Staine was stabbed seventeen times all over the body with a deep single stab wound in his neck.
Althea Staine
“God no the sleep, who kill ah, God noh di sleep. And I di tell you, I dah noh violence people, I noh gwine through violence, but I tell you, I wah know who kill my pickney.”
This morning the police returned to the crime scene to look for evidence. According to the authorities, while they have been questioning two persons they do not have a prime suspect or the murder weapon. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
According to our unofficial tally, the death of William Staine is the nation’s seventeenth murder for 2004.
