Did land dispute cause gruesome death of Clinton Davis?
Clinton Arthur Davis
Belize City resident, Clinton Arthur Davis, was beaten to death and his decomposing body was found three days later on Friday at his property. Davis owns a piece of land beside Old Belize on the outskirts of the city. The land was passed down in his family but his wife says that it has caused a rift and Davis was being threatened ever since. He left his home to buy groceries in the City on Tuesday and that was the last time he was seen alive. Police say that they have several persons detained but we will have more on that shortly. We share first the brutal murder of the father of four. Andrea Polanco has the story.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Fifty-three-year-old Clinton Davis was beaten and killed here on his property at mile four on the George Price Highway. On Friday afternoon, Davis’ decomposing body was found near this tree. His head was bashed in and a piece of stick was forced down his throat. It is believed that sometime on Tuesday night the killers lay waited Davis when he walking along this road heading to his house.
Alice-May Davis, Wife
Alice-May Davis
“Obviously, he actually made it home but he didn’t make it to the back of our home here by the seafront. But he did came home off that bus but by the booth out there, that was where it seems like they were dodging him and they escalate the killing. And I realize that my husband was dead all this while. He was so swollen; swollen like a balloon.”
Andrea Polanco
“He had injuries to his body?”
Alice-May Davis
“Yes, ma’m. He had a crash in his forehead; like they took something and lash him in his head and he had a stick stuck down his throat.”
Davis went in to Belize City on Tuesday to shop for some groceries. His daughter last saw him around five that evening in the City. Alice-May says that that he never returned home that night but she never suspected that he was lying dead just a stone’s throw away from their family home. But that Tuesday night Police was out near the Davis’ propertyreportedly looking for a body – but they never found one – it wasn’t until three days later that body was found – and it was Davis’.
Alice-May Davis
“On that same Tuesday night after 8 or 9, they say it is not here, not this location and so they all went and left. But before the officer left, I went to tell him that same Tuesday night that my husband gone today and he didn’t come home. But they said you cannot file a missing report as yet.”
Andrea Polanco
“At what point did you, your children become concerned that your husband didn’t come home; did you suspect that he’d turn up dead?”
Alice-May Davis
“I didn’t expect that. The same Tuesday all of us was at home in the night and we didn’t even hear a house and the the place was quiet. The spirit didn’t feel like somebody was dead. Because I know my husband, too, he is a guy who likes to go out and hang out with one of his cousins and then he bring him home in his car. So, I didn’t worry about that. But when the third day came, miss, and he didn’t come back, so I told my daughter to put out something on Facebook and as they did that the Friday afternoon Police was on the land at the crime scene. I didn’t even know or see my husband down there. I didn’t smell a thing because the breeze blows that way.”
Alice-May says she is convinced that her husband was killed because of this property. Davis’ parents handed down this sea front land to him as a lease many years ago. Davis started to live here thirty-two years ago and he paid to get the property title. He developed the land and called it the ‘Florida Beach Resort’.But while this piece of land of about five acres brought him a lot of joy over two decades ago, since 2006 it became a source of a bitter dispute with relatives that landed before the court.
Alice-May Davis
“We start this house while we were living in smaller house at the back of the land right behind these two. We started to invest some money. We build a road and put a structure up, with our own pocket money, pay for the property and everything. After that, he constantly comes around. He had a wife too, stressing us out.”
Andrea Polanco
“Making threats?”
Alice-May Davis
“Yes, ma’m. He broke up our booth, stomp them in. We have records of those. We went to court and bound them over the piece and all sorts of things.
He is no enemy to him. He still cause problems until it escalates to this.”
Andrea Polanco
“So, now, you believe that Mr Davis was killed because of this land?”
Alice-May Davis
“Yes, ma’m. The guys they come quarrelling. He brought all kinda guys. Sometimes different ones that I can’t even recall all of them.”
Andrea Polanco
“Did they ever make death threats like, ‘ Look, Clinton, ah wah kill yuh fi this land?’”
Alice-May Davis
“Yes, ma’m.”
The killers took some of Davis’ personal belongings. Some documents, including his wallet, were found strewn around where he was killed. Alice-May doesn’t believe that the killers were random robbers looking for a quick buck– but rather persons who knew him well and wanted him dead.
Andrea Polanco
“Did he have any personal belongings on him when they found the body or were his things missing?”
Alice-May Davis
“He had a red and black bag. He had all his wallet, his phone. It seems the killers went through everything that he had and stole his things as well with the land documents. I didn’t even get the grocery that he had gone to purchase. And the money in his wallet was gone as well.”
Andrea Polanco
“I know you have the angle of the land dispute – have you ruled out whether it was someone random who robbed your husband – another criminal around who robbed and killed him?”
Alice-May Davis
“No, ma’m. I don’t think there is anybody who would hurt my husband. My husband is a good man.”
Andrea Polanco reporting for News Five.
