“Old beef” ends in murder

It was a death that the police would describe as typical: an “old beef” finally settled in the early hours of Saturday morning by the business end of a handgun. But for the family of a victim, no death could ever be considered typical. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods reports.

Anthony Ferguson, Father of the Deceased

“As I always talk to my sons, I tell them whenever they find themselves in any form of dispute, it would be best if they walk away, because the way life seem here in Belize really, people settle things by using a gun.”

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

We don’t know if twenty-two year old Dylon Ferguson remembered his father’s advice, but shortly after he got involved in a dispute with someone he knew, Ferguson was shot several times and killed in front of Archie’s Restaurant and Club on Central American Boulevard.

Ferguson says Dylon was along with a relative inside the establishment when the argument started between his son and another young man.

Anthony Ferguson

“He mentioned that he got in between them to quiet Dylon which he had quiet him down, but he told me that he left to go to the bathroom. He said it could have been that time when Dylon went downstairs. Shortly after, a girl came upstairs and said that somebody got shot downstairs. He replied that he hoped it was not Dylon. When he went downstairs and looked it was indeed his nephew.”

It’s not clear what the old dispute was about, but Ferguson says his son’s death came at a time when he was working hard to improve things at home.

Anthony Ferguson

“His lifestyle indeed had changed. He had an interest in terms of setting up a house where he and his girlfriend would live. As a matter of fact, he had his lot and he took me down there and I encouraged him what to do as a young man. I told him that would be within his best interest to even get married to the young lady and start a real family.”

Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.

Although the police have made no arrests, they have detained one suspect. Anthony Ferguson and his family are no strangers to grief. In November of 1997 Dylon’s brother, Kenny, went out on a fishing expedition and never returned. Believed to have drowned, his body was never recovered.