5 charged in Stann Creek murder

Five men from the Stann Creek District are in custody tonight pending charges of murder. According to police, on Sunday they were called out to an area off the Melinda Road were they saw the partly decomposed body of a man laying the bushes. The body has since been identified as twenty-year-old Miguel Jose Ovidio, a Guatemalan resident of the Long Bank Community. Ovidio was last seen alive in Dangriga and subsequent investigations have led police to detain five men, all residents of that southern town. Police have yet to release their identities.

Meanwhile, police in Belize City have rearrested twenty-six year old Jerry Bush and are looking for Terrence Bailey in connection with the murder of Kareem Swazo and attempted murder of Calbert Budd on June twenty-sixth, 2003, near St. Ignatius School in Belize City. Bush has since been charged with murder and attempted murder. He and Bailey had been previously been charged on those same counts, but the case had been thrown out after the Magistrate determined that the Director of Public Prosecutions was not prepared the day the trial was to have started.