Murder in Cotton Tree: Man is Beheaded
Hilton Wade
Beheadings are rare in Belize, but early this morning a gruesome discovery was made near the Harmony community on the George Price Highway. The head of a man was found at a bus shed and his body later discovered in Cotton Tree Village. His identity has been confirmed as Hilton Wade, a fifty-six-year-old resident. Wade lived in an abandoned house at a property owned by someone else. Police are tonight trying to find out what motivated his grizzly murder? News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Just after six this morning, police rushed to the scene of a ghastly discovery of a severed head in the vicinity of Harmonyville, on the George Price Highway. It was found on the seat under a bus shed in an almost isolated area of the highway. Minutes later, police headed to another horrendous discovery in the village of Cotton Tree near mile forty-three where a headless body was discovered some twenty-yards behind what seemed to be an abandoned property just across from the Saint Joseph R.C. School in the village. 
The words, ‘Do Not Enter,’ sprayed on to the concrete posts at the entrance to the yard did not deter the killer or killers from trespassing the residence, before slaughtering Hilton Wade. That’s because the mattress and a few other items inside the home were torched, presumably after Wade was murdered, stabbed multiple times to the body, and his head severed.
While no official identification documents were found, several receipts and documents including letters from attorney Michelle Zuniga and a statement to the Chief Justice – belonging to a Wade of Cotton Tree Village address was scattered in a corner on the floor.
Both scenes were cordoned off by police and processed before the body parts were transported to the Western Regional Hospital and then on to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where it awaits a post mortem.
The fifty-six-year-old man is known in the village and elsewhere in Belmopan and Camalote as a loner; some say he was mentally challenged and complained of not getting justice from the police and the Lands Department. But Cotton Tree villagers say that Wade did not own the property where he lived; it belonged to a Chinese businessman, who allegedly threatened his life after he refused to leave the property. Is that the motive for this heinous crime against Wade? Police investigations continue into this latest homicide. Duane Moody for News Five.
Back in 2016, a well-known Pastor Llewellyn Lucas was beheaded and his head discovered in a bucket in the pan of a pickup truck belonging to William Danny Mason in Belmopan. That case remains open and Mason is behind bars awaiting trial of the vicious murder.
