2 killed in holiday traffic knockdowns

Two people were killed by motorists over the holiday weekend in separate incidents in the Belize and Stann Creek districts. On independence eve on the road between Independence Village and the Big Creek port, seventeen year old student Christopher Charlie was hit by a pickup truck being driven by thirty-two year old James Chinchilla. Charlie was walking down the road with another student, fourteen year old Anna Marie Burgess, when he was knocked down from behind by Chinchilla, who had been drinking. Charlie died en route to Southern Regional Hospital while Burgess suffered only minor injuries. Chinchilla has been charged with nine traffic offences including manslaughter by negligence, drunk driving and failure to report a traffic accident.

On Sunday night near midnight, twenty-four year old Guatemalan Jose Manuel Pascual was killed when the bicycle he was riding was knocked down by a pickup truck on the Western Highway. The vehicle’s driver, Armando Moguel of Belize City, told police that he was driving toward Belize City when between miles nine and ten Pascual, who was riding in the same direction, suddenly veered across the road into his path. Pascual died on the spot. Moguel is being questioned by police.