Employer charged in employee’s murder

A fatal shooting that took place in Belize City over the weekend may have taken place in a shop, but it was definitely not your usual homicide. Jacqueline Woods has more.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Fifty-one year old Norman Ferguson better known as ?butta? was an employee of Prime Cut Meats, a popular establishment at number 19 Central American Boulevard so when he was shot and killed by his employer, thirty-three year old Edwardo Reyes, it came as a shock to his family.

Kendra Tucker, Niece of Deceased
?And that?s what hurts us, the family because sometimes we can?t even get him to do something for us because he have to do it for Mandos them and to see those are the same people who took his life. That?s what hurt the family and the next reason because they just leave him right out there to die with no assistance.?

?I ran out there and I meet him on the ground lying in his blood and I was asking him who did this to him but apparently he was dead already, that was the first question I asked, who did this? And his eyes just open. I asked someone if it was a robbery, if someone went into the meat shop and tried rob them and he got shot and they say no, it seem like the owner shot him.?

Police say their investigation reveals that shortly after Ferguson entered the premises around midday on Saturday, there was an altercation between him and the proprietor and it is at this point that Reyes used his licensed nine millimetre pistol to shoot Ferguson in the left side of his chest. One report the police are investigating is that Ferguson allegedly harassed Reyes? wife and it was as a result of this he was shot. Kendra Tucker says the family is concerned about the fact that shortly after the shooting incident, the place was washed clean by the proprietors. They worry that someone may have tampered with the evidence.

Kendra Tucker
?We have witness that said it happened inside, it happened inside because they saw him leave outside the meat shop, holding his chest and saying aye, aye like he was in disbelief and he dropped there and lay there and after that the shutters they start coming down, no one came out to assist.?

?Why did they wash down their area? Why did they close down their shutters? When I reached there, to see my uncle, lying there, the shutters were down for the two businesses already with no one out there to assist him.?

Inside the building, the police not only recovered the weapon but also one magazine and 14 live rounds of ammunition as well as the one expended shell. Reyes has been arrested and charged with murder Jacqueline Woods for News 5.