Third suspect in double murder turns himself in

The third suspect in the double murder of Philip and Kevin Brannon has turned himself in to police. At around ten-thirty this morning twenty-three year old Taedron Bennett, accompanied by attorney Simeon Sampson, appeared at the C.I.B. office on Queen Street where Bennett was taken into custody. He will spend tonight in police lockup before being arraigned Friday morning in Magistrates Court. Bennett will join Ricardo Aguilar and Joseph Kee, who are already residing at Hattieville Prison, awaiting the continuation of legal proceedings against them. Police believe that the three men were the ones who ambushed the brothers in a hail of gunfire in the early hours of Sunday morning as they returned home from a concert as the Belize City Centre. Interestingly, all three of the accused, believed to be owners of licensed nine millimetre handguns, are claiming that their weapons were stolen either before or after the fatal shootings. Of course, if the guns were not missing their barrels could be compared–and possibly matched–with the nine millimetre slugs found at the scene.

And while Taedron Bennett spent the afternoon on Queen Street, the lives of Philip and Kevin Brannon were celebrated in a funeral mass at St. John’s Cathedral. The crowd at the historic church was standing room only. Basil Brannon, wounded in the attack that killed his brothers, attended the service seated in a wheelchair. Their friend Mervin Humes, also wounded that night, remains hospitalised.