Youth Goes Missing for A Week Without A Trace

Jeremy Westby

Today makes exactly one week since eighteen-year-old Jeremy Westby went missing from his neighbourhood in the Lake Independence area of Belize City. The young man had just gone to a friend’s house to borrow a bicycle and he never returned. Tonight, his mother, Erlett Geban told News Five that her son’s friends were the last ones that he was with and they said he left their house, but they did not see which direction he headed. Geban told us today that this is the first time that he has gone without sending a message to her, so this leaves her very worried.

Erlett Geban

Erlett Geban, Mother of Jeremy Westby

“Tuesday, he was in front of our home on Marigold Lane. He was just standing there. Cordel [Hyde] was giving away hams, so everyone was in the front on Tibruce Street. I came up here, and then he was making a lot of noise, but he was talking to one of his friends, so he cursed, so from up here, I yelled at him, and I said, “Boy, why the bad word?” And he said, “Ma, stop worry ‘bout that.” And then his friends went over to meet with him. It was him, my oldest son, and two other boys. He smokes weed so he went to buy a smoke with the family friend. He rode off on Tribruce Street around the lane, and from then, I have not heard from him. I called him, I messaged him, I called him, I called him, there wasn’t any response. I sent out a post to look for him because I knew once he saw that he would either send a message, or he would call and say, Ma, where you the door? Or, Ma, what happened? Or, Ma, yoh know I di come home. But when there wasn’t any reply, that’s when we started to worry. We started asking the young man that he left with. He left with a very close family friend who lives in the area. He borrowed the bike of another one of his friends. When we started looking around, we learned that the friend got back his bike, but my son still did not come home.”

Marion Ali

“So did you go talk to that friend? What did he tell you? How did he get back his bike?”

Erlett Geban

“My [older] son actually spoke to him and he said he got back the bike from the person that my son left with – the family friend. So then my son spoke to that young man and that young man said that my son left, but he could not see a where or how he left the house. He just said my son left.”