More Questions than Answers in Tragic AAA Security Murder-Suicide

Robert Godfrey & Delsie Smith

There are still more questions than answers in the murder-suicide of businessman Robert Godfrey of Triple A Security and his long time employee Delsie Smith over the weekend. The allegation is that Godfrey shot Smith to the head and then turned the gun on himself. But what led to the shocking shooting at the offices of Triple A on the Philip Goldson Highway? As police piece that puzzle together, News Five’s Isani Cayetano revisits an interview with the family of Smith that can provide some more insight into the tragic events of Friday night.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

Was the unthinkable tragedy that befell businessman Robert Godfrey and longtime employee Delsie Smith the result of financial troubles?  It’s one of several questions being asked in the wake of the murder/suicide, since a motive for the deadly ordeal may have expired along with Godfrey on Friday night.  A prayer found amongst Smith’s everyday belongings suggests that the company, AAA Security, was in need of expansion, financially and physically.  That address to God is recited by Smith’s daughter, Tricia Hislop.

Tricia Hislop, Daughter of Deceased

“I would just like to say, and to the Godfrey family, my deepest sympathy.  I found a prayer in her purse, she was praying for some stuff and the thing said, for your project to become reality you should come every Monday until December twenty-fifth, praying this project for prayer and obey all directions of the man of God.  That’s for the prayer to come through.  She said, “I need my job at AAA Security to prosper with new locations, grow financially, get bigger and better.  I need to know how to manage my finances so I can pay all my bills, renovate my home and work hard towards a new car.  Bless my boss and my kids financially, help them in all their problems, their relationships and households.  I need to pray for good health for my boss and for me and my kids.  In Jesus’, name.  Amen.”

The sequence of events, as recounted by an eyewitness to Hislop, indicates that Smith and Godfrey were inside the first floor office preparing salaries and weekly schedules moments before the shootings.  In narrating what transpired, Hislop doesn’t provide specific details, adding instead to the mystery.

Tricia Hislop

Tricia Hislop

“I don’t want to say the details because I don’t think it’s appropriate for the television or anybody else, you know.  It’s for us to know that part and that was that.  She ran out.  She was surprised herself because, you know, we are all laughing and talking.  We don’t know what happened.  We don’t know what went through his mind, but we may never know.”

But was the relationship between Smith and her employer? Her daughter flatly rejects any speculation.  Hislop’s response, however, implies that there’s more than meets the eye between Smith and Godfrey’s common-law wife.

Tricia Hislop

“I don’t really want to say down to the details of any issue with her and my mom or whatever, but it’s hard to say what really happened because I don’t know.  I have nothing bad to say about him.  It hurts, yes, and we still want answers as to what happened and why, but I won’t let the hurt take over my feelings and what I felt for him before.  He was a family friend, my mom was working with him for eleven years and I have nothing to say.  You never know when people have their own issues what goes through their mind and he felt like that was the only solution.  I have nothing to say about it.”

The job of the Belize Police Department at this juncture is to investigate the circumstances surrounding this great misfortune.  For Hislop and her family, they simply want the public to refrain from conjecture.

Tricia Hislop

“We would like to say to the public, you know, please just let the speculations and all those, you know, be over, because when somebody dies it hurts when people just put bull out deh and dehn noh really understand weh da di situation.  My mom was a very good worker, she was the manager of AAA.  He was the boss and they had a good relationship.  Little problems here and there with his own personal thing but it was never anything that anybody expected that he would have killed my mom.  We have nothing to say about him because he was a good man.”

Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.