Foul play feared in man’s disappearance
Most reports of missing persons wind up with happy endings, as a rambunctious child or roaming spouse finally find their way home. But some cases do not fit the usual pattern…and that’s why tonight one distraught woman is asking the public for help.
Ann Pou, Sister
“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. But just from the people that are in San Pedro with him and the concern that they have, because they say it’s not like him to go so long without not calling, not saying anything. So I just want if he’s out there somewhere he can call us home collect.”
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Three weeks ago forty-four-year-old Raymond Smith better known as “Peanuts” told a friend he was going fishing. Since then no one has seen or heard from him. Ann Pou says he brother did not regularly keep in touch with the family, but because of disturbing reports they have been receiving from San Pedro where Smith resided, she believes something has happened to him. Pou says a friend told her about a strange conversation that allegedly took place inside a bar that suggests her brother could have been murdered.
Ann Pou, Sister
“His bicycle that he is usually on is still at home, the house was still locked. She had to break in the house and went in to see if he was inside; he was not in there. And she called me yesterday morning and told me a young lady came by her house and said that two men were arguing in a bar and one of the men told the other man, “he better not fool with him because he will chop him up and put him in a crocus sack and bury him just like he did to Peanuts.” Because they also call my brother “Peanuts”.
Jacqueline Woods
“What is the family doing to try to find your brother?”
Ann Pou
“Well I’m keeping in contact with the police in San Pedro, I went to report it to the police this morning, and they say the statement I’m giving is not sufficient because everything I’m saying is hearsay, because I don’t live in San Pedro, so it’s just what they are calling me and telling me what happened to my brothers, so I don’t really know the whereabouts of him.”
Three years ago Smith was chopped and shot following an alleged drug deal that the family claims he was not a part of. Pou says she does not know if her brother’s disappearance might be connected to the previous incident.
Ann Pou
“Jackie, I can’t honestly answer that, because I don’t know. That’s something that happened three years ago and I noh know what to say because nothing never really come out of that case weh happen three years ago with he, so I noh know if dah something with that or if dah noh something with that. I honestly can’t answer that.”
If you have any information that can help the family locate Raymond Smith, better known as “Peanuts”, please contact Ann Pou at telephone number 225-6058.
In another missing persons report, twenty-two year old taxi driver, Rene Caceres, has not been seen by his family since Saturday, May seventeenth. On that day he left Belize City in his red Toyota Camry taxi, heading south. Caceres is five foot five inches tall of Hispanic descent with a heart tattooed on his upper right arm, a dragon on his left forearm and a bulldog on the back of his left hand. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Rene Caceres is asked to call the nearest police station.
