Shooting Victim Alva Moody Opens Up About the Murder of Her Three-year-old Daughter

Etana Bennett

The life of three-year-old Etana Bennett was cut short just after five o’clock on Monday evening, as we reported in our newscast. The child clung to life for almost forty hours after she was shot as she slept in the comfort of her home.  Her mother was also injured, but survived the shooting by a gunman in the dead of Sunday morning. As the community grieves the heart breaking loss of an innocent life, the ill-fated Felix family, is coming to terms with the fourth murder of one of their own.  Etana’s father, Roy, the intended target of the shooting, was missed by the gunman, who left a wall riddled with bullets on Gill Street, Belize City. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.

Alva Moody, Shooting Victim

Alva Moody

“I heard the last two gunshots, I never heard the first and the second ones.  As the gunshot done, I didn’t hear any car, so probably the person was on bike, and when I looked, I checked my baby, I shook her, I said, “Etana, mama, Etana, mama”  And then she made a noise, so I said well, she’s not dead because they asked me to check her if she is dead.  But she wasn’t dead, so we put, her father took her out of the bed and put her in the chair and then that’s when he noticed that the side of her head was bleeding.”

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

The death of yet another loved one, slain while fast asleep in the warmth of her parents’ bed, is a grim reminder of a macabre crime scene that unfolded at this very location eight and a half years ago.  On the morning of January sixth, 2013, neighbors woke up to sad news that twenty-two-year-old Feeshia Felix had been shot and killed inside her bedroom at her family home on Gill Street.   The incident on Sunday morning that has since claimed the life of three-year-old Etana Bennett is shockingly similar.

Sharon Faber

Sharon Faber, Mother/Grandmother of Shooting Victims

“Dehn people out ya noh have no mind, no mercy, dehn noh care da weh dehn do out ya and dehn noh realize dehn have family too, you know, dehn have family, because dehn take away that young little girl’s life fi nothing, you know, and ih wrong.”

Having been discharged from the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital shortly before noon on Monday, twenty-eight-year-old Alva Moody, who was injured in the right hand, buttocks and thigh, was hardly settled in at her mother’s house when she received the dreadful phone call.

Isani Cayetano

“Now you were discharged yesterday, I believe it’s sometime before baby Etana took her last breath.  Explain to me how you got that call or how did you come by that information that your daughter did not survive this ordeal.”

Alva Moody

“Well, I was released before twelve.  I went to see her, I talked to her, I told her, “Don’t worry mama, I’m coming back because we’re gonna buy ice cream when you wake” and then I went home.  I get a call from the doctor and I went there, but when I went to the hospital I saw one of the machines not on, but I wasn’t thinking that she passed, I just sat down and then the doctor told me.  I said, “Is Etana okay?”  The doctor said no.”

Etana had succumbed to an injury received when a single round struck her in the right temple.  The corrugated zinc fence facing the street is bullet-riddled.  So too is the outer wall of the bedroom, peppered with bullet holes from Feeshia’s murder in 2013 and Etana’s murder on Sunday morning.

Sharon Faber

“I don’t know, but the way how I’m thinking, I feel like da di same person went back to that house and do it, because dehn do it at the same hours when that little girl died, the same hours and da di same hours when I get di call and ah run da Karl Heusner.”

The shooting death of Raymond Arnold on Thursday night and the latest attack on the Felix family home is being investigated to determine if there is a connection between both incidents.

ASP Alejandro Cowo, O.C., C.I.B., Belize City

ASP Alejandro Cowo

“It does not have a direct link up to this moment, but that’s a possibility that we are looking at likewise.”

It is unclear whether the deadly shootings are in fact the result of an ongoing rivalry, the three-year-old toddler being collateral damage in that presumed conflict.

Alva Moody

“She’s my only baby.”

Isani Cayetano

“How are you coping with this tragedy?  You got into a situation where you guys were not the intended target of this incident, not by any means, not yourself or your daughter.  How do you cope with such a tragedy?  How do you begin to accept what has happened?”

Alva Moody

“I noh really accept weh happen.  I feel sad, I miss my baby. But the person who did it, I know who you are and like you say, it wasn’t me and it wasn’t my baby you want.  It was either me or the next two, but you take away my only life from me.  But don’t worry, God ain’t sleeping.”

Isani Cayetano reporting for News Five.