Jury deliberates in the murder trial of Belmopan Mayor’s son, Aubrey Lopez

Paul Jex

Up to news time, a jury is deliberating the fate of Paul Jex, accused of the murder of Aubrey Lopez, the son of Belmopan’s Mayor Simeon Lopez. Lopez was violently murdered in May 2010 in Belize City. The sensational trial of the accused Belize City suspect, Jex, got underway two weeks ago in the Supreme Court and while a number of witnesses have been called to testify, the main witness did not appear in court. During the course of the trial, Prosecutor Kaysha Grant called fourteen witnesses; the main witness was a twenty year old youth of the George Street area, who received immunity to give testimony against Jex. It is Jex, he claims, who took the life of Lopez, a well liked teacher of Edward P. Yorke High School.  Lopez was socializing at a function at the high school on the night of May twefth, 2010, when a group of men took over his Nissan Altima car; he was shot once in the back of the head and thrown from the vehicle and left to die on Prince Street. The main witness, however, did not testify for fear of his life, but his statement to the police was admitted as evidence. The co-conspirator broke down when he appeared in court claiming that there were threats to his life, the most recent being at the start of the trial. In the statement taken by the police, the witness said that he was at a yard on Prince Street where he had gone to visit a young lady. While there, an Altima car drove up and two men alighted the vehicle, one came from the front passenger side; the other came from the back seat of the car.  He also said he recognized Jex as he exited the vehicle and that he saw when Jex shot Lopez and then pushed him out of the vehicle.  According to the statement, there was another person in the vehicle, known as “Bobo Youth”. The witness claimed that he then got into the vehicle; they drove away and stopped at the corner of George Street, where another person handed over a shotgun to “Bobo Youth”. They were later intercepted by the police and caught on West Collet Canal near the Queen Square Market. The main witness also said that he jumped out of the car and hid near a drain where the police found him. While the main witness did not testify in court, Lopez’s girlfriend at the time, Tanya Welch, an employee of B.T.L., did. She said she saw Lopez just hours prior to his murder and that the Altima was hers.  The last time she spoke to him was at about nine o’clock on the night of the murder. She later saw two missed calls from him. The jury is still in deliberations and we’ll have the verdict as soon as it is made available. The case was heard in the court of Justice Adolph Lucas.