W.P.C. is dead; was it murder or accident?

The facts of how it happened are not completely clear, but the bottom line is that a Woman Police Constable is dead, shot by her boyfriend in what may or may not have been an accident. Today I travelled up the Northern Highway to the scene of the killing in an effort to better understand the events behind the tragedy.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Belize City police are tonight trying to find out whether the death of one of their own?W.P.C. Myrna Lopez–was a murder or a tragic accident. Preliminary reports are that on Sunday afternoon Lopez her common-law-husband Ken Young and the couple?s teenage daughter and young son arrived at the Grace Bank Resort where a children?s birthday party was being held.

Mark Dawson, Proprietor, Grace Bank Resort
?Well we were having a small baby birthday party, and they came and they get in it, so we didn?t have anything to do with that. The weather was awful and bad and they came in and join us and there was no problem.?

The resort?s proprietor Mark Dawson says the Lopez family seemed to be having a good time and there was no trouble inside his establishment. However as weather conditions worsened the family decided to leave in the company of an unidentified young man.

Jacqueline Godwin
?They were all happy; they weren?t quarrelling?

Mark Dawson
?No, well not that I saw. Nobody was quarrelling or nothing. They just left.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?Did they say anything to you when they were leaving??

Mark Dawson
?No they didn?t say anything. They didn?t say anything to nobody.?

Dawson says he was inside the building when the rain started and as he got ready to close the place that?s when he heard a single gun shot that came from the direction of Lopez?s car that was parked in front of his business.

Mark Dawson
?I didn?t see who all were in the car, but I guess some of the guys?there was like five of them. I think some of them were in the car, two kids and another guy. I do not know.?

Details are still sketchy as to what transpired at the vehicle but sources tell News Five the shooting did not occur inside the car, but that everything unfolded to the rear of the Toyota Camry. One report the cops are investigating is that when the Lopez family approached the vehicle W.P.C. Lopez allegedly got into an altercation with an unidentified assailant, Lopez was reportedly defending herself with a pint bottle in her hand as the unidentified person wielded a machete. Sources tell News Five that Young was armed with a forty five pistol and came to Lopez?s defence but the weapon went off and the bullet caught Lopez in her chest.

Then other report is that it was Young who got into a fight with the unidentified young man whom he allegedly hit in the head with the weapon when the gun fired. Lopez, who was hit from a very close range, was put into the vehicle and rushed to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital but the car never made it to Belize City. It crashed into a lamp post just outside of Sand Hill Village. When police responded to the traffic accident they discovered Lopez gravely injured lying on the back seat.

Lennox Richards, Resident, Sand Hill Village
?It was very sad; it was a sad scene. I know she was in the backseat. When the police came, they look at her through the glass to see her.?

Lopez?s long time friend Dianne Palacio says when she rushed to the K.H.M.H. she was hoping for some good news.

Dianne Palacio, Friend
?I know her for a very long time. She even stand for my baby. I?m really hurt about everything that happened.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?What you heard happened??

Dianne Palacio
?They only call me and tell me that I should go to the hospital because they think she got shot and I should go see if anything wrong with her. Apparently when I got there a next lady came and said that she dead.?

Palacio says she is still in shock but based on what the Lopez?s children told her at the hospital she does not believe her friend was intentionally killed.

Dianne Palacio
?Well the pickney tell me that they got into an argument with somebody at that place. He mussy mih wah fight with the bwoy them there and he haul out the gun and he mussy just accidentally shot her. Well the pickney them we have to believe, because dah them witness everything. So weh them say goes.?

The police would not comment on their ongoing investigation but today they arrested and charged Young with murder. They also have in possession the forty-five pistol they believed was used in the shooting.

The Sunday outing was just one of many the Lopez?s family made to Grace Bank Resort.

Mark Dawson
?Really awful for the place, because we didn?t have those kind of things back here for years. It really hard for me, you know.?

W.P.C. Lopez has been with the police department for five years. Up until the time of her death she was attached to the patrol branch in Belize City.