Who Do the Remains Found on Monday in Port Belong To?

As we reported on Monday, police discovered what appeared to be the skeletal remains of a man in a shallow grave behind the Customs Department in Belize City. Along with the bones were a green camouflage shirt and a pair of black jeans pants. The remains have been sent off to the National Forensics Science Service morgue for a full examination. This includes a medico-legal postmortem examination to determine the cause and manner of death; and some months later, after DNA analysis is completed, an identity can be made. While clothing is oftentimes used to identify human remains that have already decomposed, in this case, it is uncertain if the clothing found with the remains belong to any of three men who went missing around the same time a few weeks ago, all under different circumstances. We checked in with the family of twenty-seven-year-old Akeem Augustine who went missing on Christmas Day, 2022. But he was last seen wearing a red shirt. An elderly relative of twenty-nine-year-old Christopher Sosa who we spoke with, meanwhile, could not say specifically whether the clothing belonged to him because he lived in a different home setting. Sosa was last seen on January fifth. Similarly, twenty-three-year-old Kyle Latchman was last seen on Boxing Day, 2022, but his grandmother who we spoke with can’t say if the clothing is his because he also lived in a different home setting and went missing the day after she last saw him on Christmas Day. Barbara Latchman told us today that Kyle was supposed to return to the U.S., where he was born, but he disappeared before that time came.

Voice of: Barbara Latchman, Grandmother of Kyle Latchman

“His father is a Belizean. He and my daughter – his mother – are American and he came to visit his father and that’s why he was here. He wanted to see his father and he came here; he’s been here, you know. His mother was just getting ready to come and get him, take him back to the U.S.”

Marion Ali

“The last time you saw him was when?”

Voice of: Barbara Latchman

“Christmas Day, around six – Christmas evening. He stopped in, so we were joking and things like that and that’s the last time I saw him. If he went away, which we doubt, and if he’s in Belize City or Belize District or wherever, he would have already gotten in touch with his mother or his sisters.”