Driver charged in fatal traffic accident
The driver believed to have caused Sunday night’s traffic accident on the Northern Highway, which left two people dead, has been charged. According to police, thirty-two year old Gustavo Cardenas Junior of Orange Walk town will answer to two counts of manslaughter by negligence, two counts of causing death by careless conduct, negligent wounding, failure to stop and render aid, failure to report an accident, driving without due care and attention and refusing to provide a blood specimen to police. Regarding that last charge, police sources tell News 5 that when Cardenas turned himself in at the Orange Walk police station on Monday morning he was taken to the Northern Regional Hospital so doctors could test his blood for illegal substances. But when he was asked to do so by the cops, Cardenas, on the advice of his attorney, refused to submit to the test. Cardenas showed up later that day and took his blood test, but he had already committed the offence and was charged accordingly. The results of those tests should be released by Thursday of this week. As for his side of the story, in his statement to police Cardenas says that just before the accident he saw the vehicle approaching, but its bright lights blinded him and as he rounded the curve, collided head on with the Isuzu pickup…then lost consciousness. But the police are highly suspicious of this version of events because Cardenas could not explain, if he did in fact pass out, why he left the scene and tried to get a friend to take him to a private doctor to treat his injuries instead of going to the hospital. Just before eight on Sunday night, Cardenas, behind the wheel of his Jeep Cherokee, crashed head on into an Isuzu pickup between miles fifty-one and fifty-two on the Northern Highway. The driver, C.I.B. officer Lincoln Kellyman, and one of his two passengers Uimal Kumer, a businessman from Corozal, died as a result of ruptured vital organs. The other passenger, Omar Ceballos, was treated at the Northern Regional and later released. P.C. Kellyman will be buried on Wednesday afternoon at three in Libertad Village, Corozal.
