Trio Convicted of Murder of Cayo Taxi Man

A jury of seven women and five men stepped into the deliberating room at just after noon today to decide the fate of three men from Cayo, who are accused jointly with the murder of eighty-two-year-old James Neal Young, who was killed in a most gruesome manner. Four and a half hours later, the verdict was in – Matthew Gentle, Sherlock Myvett and Ricardo Tzul were found guilty of the murder of the elderly taxi-man. Neal Young’s cab was hired by the trio who lured him to his death.  Even as the elderly man pleaded for his life, he was stabbed multiples times to his body on July twenty-eighth, 2009, at the Pooks Hill Resort in Cayo. The three accused men, including Neal Young’s next door neighbour, were charged with his murder in 2009.  In trial, it was revealed that two inflicted stab wounds to Neal/Young, while the third, Myvett claimed that he had only agreed to rob the taxi-man. But the damning evidence came from the crown’s main witness, Leon Gentle, the cousin of Matthew.  During the trial, Leon said, that on July twenty-eighth, 2009, he went to sell coconuts and coconut oil in Belmopan. Upon his return home in Esperanza Village, he met his cousin, Matthew and was invited for drinks. He went home and did not leave home until the following day. But in his statement to police back in 2009 he told police that he was the one who took Neal/Young, to the scene where he was killed.  According to Leon, Tzul took the deceased to Pook’s Hill where he alleged Tzul and Mathew stabbed him. Leon further said that Myvett agreed only to the robbery, but the jury also convicted him of murder since he was part of the orchestrated crime.  The case was heard before Judge Antoinette Moore and sentencing is set for March twenty-third in Belmopan.