In Blackman Eddy, More Body Parts Found; Who Do They Belong To?
More body parts were found this morning in the Belize River in Blackman Eddy, Cayo District. On Tuesday afternoon, the hands and feet of a man were found stuffed in a sack. Around eight o’clock this morning, a search party found a torso also in a sack submerged in the water about three hundred feet from the first discovery. The search continues for the head for the murdered unidentified man. An ongoing investigation in this most recent murder in the west has been intensive and up until this morning, there have been no known reports of a missing person. News Five’s Duane Moody was at the scene of the crime.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Around eight this morning, a torso was found in a sack during a search of the Belize River in Blackman Eddy Village, Cayo. A search party consisting of officers from the San Ignacio Police Formation and soldiers attached to the Special Boat Unit of the Belize Defense Force set out early this morning to comb the river near the Iguana Creek Bridge. They came up on the submerged sack containing the body of a man without its head, feet and hands.
The search was triggered by Tuesday’s discovery of a twenty-pound sack floating on the river by a group of seven young villagers, who were catching iguanas along the river bank. Inside, were a pair of hands and feet that had been severed from a body; the head has still not been located.
Elmer Calderon
Elmer Calderon, Discovered Body Parts
“We were going together crossing the river, cause we were catching iguanas right, and so we went across and then the guy over there, my neighbor saw it first. He then told me to come on and watch this. So we went and when I saw it was a hand, lone fingers and a foot. And so we decided to go around and decided to go around to go get some help. So that’s all we did. We called the police and waited there until they arrived and showed them.”
Duane Moody
“It was in a sack?”
Elmer Calderon
“It was in a sack, yeah; the twenty-pound sack. The hand was like…you know something scary like that.”
The discovery was a frightening experience for the group of men left traumatized by the gruesome find.
Elmer Calderon
“It was a frightening experience for me in that river mien. Never ever been…the only time was that [time] when I was young that one of my colleagues drowned there when they found him there. That was the only time I saw that.”
Sherlene Mai, Eyewitness [File: March 21st, 2017]
“He’s still shaken up due to – we not even recover fully from my daughter and then for him to come up on this – he’s still shaken up.”
Reporter
“I’m sure he has questions?”
Sherlene Mai
Sherlene Mai
“I know he says – he’s still talking to me, I hope – but I say thank God they come to the river too, because the body could have remained there and then probably some parent out there is worried like I was and then they could bring a closure and find out if their loved one is missing.”
The last time a nude, decapitated and dismembered body was found was almost two years ago, on May twenty-sixth, 2015. Roaring Creek resident, twenty-eight-year-old Edilberto Madrid was gruesomely butchered and his mutilated body dumped in the Belize River off the Valley of Peace Road, just below the Agripino Cawich Bridge.
Blackman Eddy was otherwise known as a peaceful and tranquil village but in the past two weeks, there have been ghastly occurrences. Just last week the daughter of Sherlene Mai was stabbed multiple times and her body set on fire at the Belmopan dumpsite. Now body parts of a man are found floating in the village. Vice-chairman of the village, Sergio Calderon, says that it’s worrying.
Sergio Calderon, Vice-Chairman, Blackman Eddy Village [Translated]
“We think that the reality that we are living right now, it is possible that the authorities do not put in their part because this is the situation here in the country. The reality is that it depends on the position that you are standing because if they threw it from the bridge down, then the scene will be in this area. But if it was before the bridge, then it would mean further ahead.”
Sergio Calderon
Duane Moody
“So do you believe that you need more authorities here?”
Sergio Calderon [Translated]
“For me, I don’t really think so. The reality is that the authorities are needed countrywide because the entire country is becoming dangerous. So we cannot single out a village. It is likely that the problem is not from the village. The problem comes from elsewhere. So the authorities need to do their jobs and deal with it accordingly.”
Police say that the portion of the body found today is not positively identifiable and tests will have to be done to confirm if it is homogenous to the other parts found. Reporting for News Five from the banks of the river in Blackman Eddy Village, Cayo, I’m Duane Moody.
