5 Youths charged with murder in separate cases

Police have arrested and charged three young Belize City men for the brutal murder of Boledo vendor Reynaldo Smith. Nineteen year old Ricky Valencia of Queen Charlotte Street, twenty year old Emilio Rivera of Waight Street, and twenty-four year old Sean Robinson of Allan Pitts Crescent, will all appear in Magistrate’s Court later this week to enter their pleas for the crime of murder. Police say that on Thursday, April third, the three men attacked seventy-five year old Smith and bludgeoned him to death with a blunt instrument. Smith was also robbed of his handgun and cash. Valencia, Rivera and Robinson are in police custody tonight and will be remanded to Hattieville prison following their arraignment in court.

Meanwhile, another teenager, this time from Toledo, has also been charged with murder following the vicious beating of an elderly Belizean businessman. Eighteen-year-old Isidro Lara of San Pedro Columbia will stand trial for his life following the death of Francisco Gutierrez. Tonight News 5 understands that another man, identified as twenty-five year old Stanley Coleman of Punta Gorda town, will also be jointly charged with the crime. On February seventeenth, seventy-nine year old Gutierrez was tending his bar in Cattle Landing when he was ambushed, robbed and beaten unconscious. Tests later showed Gutierrez had sustained a fractured skull. He was transferred from the Punta Gorda hospital to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital shortly after the incident, but died in Belize City on Thursday, April tenth.