Dead body: murder or “natural causes?”
Police have another mystery on their hands tonight as family members insist that a corpse removed this morning from a Belize City home is a victim of murder and did not die of natural causes. News 5’s Patrick Jones has more.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The body of thirty-eight year old Ernesto Garbutt was found under a pile of clothes on his bed in this one room dwelling in the Junesville area of the City last night. The victim’s sister Janet Usher says the family became suspicious after a visit from Garbutt’s common-law wife Alila Beaton.
Janet Usher, Victim’s Sister
“She come dah my sista Sunday, pick-in the clothes, nevah gone inna the house, and yesterday gone dah my other sista dah Magazine Road and tell her that she smell, something smell funny. So my sista ask her funny like what, like any foul air. She said no, it smell like dead rat. So they ask her why you never gone in. She said, she is afraid, she noh wan go inna the house. But when my sister them start to question her and ask her and tell her I wonder if you noh kill my brother, she said, “weh I wah do that for.”
Usher says that during the exchange, the couple’s four and five-year-old children butted into the conversation with a startling comment.
Janet Usher
“The baby say, “mommy kill daddy. She put a rope round ih neck, and after she done put the rope, she put some candle over ih eye.” And I think that is enough thing we get to understand to feel that she do it.
Patrick Jones
“How old are these children and can you stick to their story?”
Janet Usher
“One of them four and one of them five.”
Patrick Jones
“Are they believable?”
Janet Usher
“Oh they are so sensible. Because they always the see violence between their ma and pa, always.”
Patrick Jones
“Where are those children now?”
Janet Usher
“They inna the care ah we.”
While the children’s confession gave Garbutt’s family reason to suspect foul play, their grief turned to anger this afternoon when the police informed them that pathologist Dr. Mario Estradabran could not pinpoint the cause of death. Usher says that a turbulent relationship dating back to the late 1990’s, coupled with what their children are saying, makes for an interesting coincidence.
Janet Usher
“Who locked him up in the house? It noh have no window. That dah what we want to know. Who locked him up and threw clothes over him. So we suspect foul play. We noh believe he killed himself at all. He would never because he always ‘fraid fu dead. I noh know weh kind a thing he and his common law have, but I think dah concern with them two. That dah wah history with them two, fight. You know how much time they go dah station. They come to me. She go left ah, he go back because of the children. She have the children them the wander about, then she noh want to give nobody the children them. I even gone dah Human Development fu mek them tek weh dem children, and she just roam the street with them. I tell them, one of these days either she kill him or he kill she. “
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
Garbutt and Beaton lived at this location for about a year and half and the last time he was seen alive was on Thursday as he socialized with friends at the Cinderella Plaza Taxi Stand. Dr. Estradabran told News 5 that after examining Garbutt’s body, no evidence of foul play was evident and that because of the advanced state of decomposition he could not conclusively say what caused his death. Up to late this evening, police still had Beaton in custody and a final determination on whether or not to file charges will be made later.
