Fatal stabbing at Barracks ends “month without murder”

A second homicide occurred on Sunday night around midnight in the Newtown Barracks area of Belize City. According to police, forty-five year old Reno Castillo was stabbed to death by a group of assailants after he resisted their attempts to take his hat and sunglasses. Castillo was part of a group of two men and three women who were approached by two men riding bicycles. Following the stabbing the pair were surrounded and detained by other people in the area until authorities arrived. Police have subsequently charged two brothers: twenty-four year old Wayne Martinez and twenty-seven year old Morris Martinez with murder. The weekend’s two homicides number sixty-four and sixty-five for the year, bring to an end the nearly unprecedented twenty-nine consecutive days without a murder in Belize.