Various crime suspects sought, charged
Police have concentrated their search for a suspect in the chopping murder of twenty year old Guatemalan Jairo Lopez in the same area where the victim’s body was found. Authorities believe that prime suspect, Juan Manuel Dubon, is hiding in the Mayan King Farm area in the Stann Creek District, the same general location where both he and his alleged victim lived and worked. Investigations reveal that the two men had a previous misunderstanding prior to Lopez’s chopping death on Friday evening.
He was arrested for chopping his ex-common-law wife and now he faces charges of attempted murder, use of deadly means of harm, and burglary. Twenty-three year old Robert Thurton of Mayflower Street was ordered to reappear in court on January twenty-seventh after he was offered and met bail of five thousand dollars plus one surety of the same amount. According to eighteen year old Simone Bradley, on Thursday she was at her current boyfriend’s house on Santa Barbara Street when Thurton entered and chopped her on the face, head, arms, and legs.
Police have no suspects yet in a shooting Monday night which has left a man with bullet wounds to his right shoulder. According to forty-nine year old taxi driver, Jose Hercules, of Santa Elena Town, Cayo, he was making his rounds in the Santiago Juan Layout area of San Ignacio around 10:00 when heard a loud bang and realized that he had been shot. Police say they searched the area but found no suspects.
Two suspected burglars have been nabbed red-handed by police in Belize City. The pair, twenty-four year old Ellington Ottley and twenty-eight year old Alex Jones, are charged with the burglary of the offices of the N.G.O., Common Ground, in King’s Park. Police say they got the call reporting something amiss at around 4:30 on Saturday afternoon and when they arrived on the scene one of the men, identified as Jones, was on the veranda. Police add that there were also visible signs of forced entry at the back of the building. When police entered, they found Ottley inside the building gathering items. Magistrate Margaret McKenzie yesterday denied bail to Ottley, while granting Jones bail in the sum of four thousand dollars, which he has met. Both men are to reappear in court on January ninth.
Police have charged a man with robbery after he reportedly entered a Belize City store and jacked the owner while holding a knife at his wife’s side. Wayne Castillo was apprehended and two hundred dollars, believed to be the proceeds of the robbery, were found by police. According to Devi Hotchandani of Starlight Store on Albert Street, around 8:30 on Saturday night he and his wife were at the shop when a man entered and held up his wife, demanding money. The thief got away with an undetermined amount of cash.
A traffic accident on the Western Highway has claimed the life of a pedestrian. The victim, fifty-six year old Orlando Gallardo, a resident of Santa Elena Town, died after he was admitted to the San Ignacio Town Hospital on Monday. Twenty-eight year old Marlon Ifield, also of Santa Elena, told police that he was heading from Belmopan toward San Ignacio in his Mitsubishi truck at around 6:00 on Monday evening when, near Santa Elena, he saw Gallardo crossing the road. Ifield said he swerved to avoid hitting Gallardo, but was unable to stop in time. Police have not yet filed any charges against Ifield.
