Dancer’s body recovered on Xmas Day

Tyrone Meighan

There were two other persons who lost their lives over the holiday weekend. At 11:50pm on December, twenty-fifth, Police responded to a scene at the Battlefield Park on Albert Street, in Belize City where they found the body of Clifford Stephen junior. The police investigation into his death is ongoing. However, an unofficial report says that the forty eight year old homeless man may have received the fatal wound when he fell.  But an energetic youth whose calling took him to the center stage, died during a trip pursuing his dream. Tyrone Meighan, a twenty-year-old Roches Street resident who loved to dance, went to Dangriga to participate in a competition. He and some friends travelled to waterfall at eighteen miles on the Hummingbird Highway. According to his distraught mother, his body was recovered on Christmas morning.

Denise Carr, Mother of Tyrone Meighan

“Best you could ever have; any mother woulda want wah son like that. [He was] quiet, just dance—dah wah very slow child, so he stick to himself. Just go with those guys, dance with them; sometime he works off and on at his uncle shop and do lee catering. I don’t know mien.”

Jose Sanchez

“When you say he dances, you mean like on a stage? What kind of dance does he do?”

Denise Carr

“He do all kind ah dance; those break dance and thing with them guys.”

Jose Sanchez

“I understand he was on these shows like master’s of the Floor and thing.”

Denise Carr

Denise Carr

“Yeah but he didn’t win.”

Jose Sanchez

“But he was very active publicly on the stage?”

Denise Carr

“Yeah everything like that.”

Jose Sanchez

“Christmas, he is in Dangriga. What’s Tyrone? He’s from Banak Street, what is he doing in Dangriga Christmas Day?”

Denise Carr

“He is from Lake I. He went there for a dance with some of his friends; some competition he said they were going to have at some club in Stann Creek. I don’t even remember the name of the club.”

Jose Sanchez

“To the best of your knowledge does Tyrone know how to swim?

Denise Carr

“Yes he can swim very good. He always does swim earlier but he stop.”

Jose Sanchez

“I know they say he drowned, but exactly what has the police told you about the incident that happened? Where was he swimming? How did he drown? Was he alone?”

Denise Carr

“They tell me nothing. One of them tell me dah Stann Creek that wah boy and girl was there and they watched him drown. When I asked ahn where the gial and bwai deh, dehn done talk to them and send them I don’t understand that. Nobody come tell me nothing.”

Jose Sanchez

“So they haven’t shown you an actual report from these witnesses?”

Denise Carr

“Nothing—they noh even show me the spot where he drowned; nothing. Then last night in the autopsy the man say only a little bit of water in his lungs. But then how whole ah ya tear up, buss up, the bleed, the blood all ah that thing. How come? I noh understand. I noh understand it yet. No police noh come talk to me or nothing; noh tell me nothing. I noh even see the lee bwai dehn or nothing weh ih gone up deh with. Nobody noh come talk to me or nothing.”

Doctor Hugh Sanchez conducted a Post Mortem Examination on Meighan’s body and he certified the cause of death to be Broncho Aspiration due to drowning.