Jordan Burns Recaptured, Taken to Court

Jordan Burns

Jordan Burns had been on the lam since escaping from lawful custody on Friday.  That was until this morning when he was recaptured by police and slapped with an additional charge.  On May twenty-fifth, he was formally arrested and charged for the murder of thirty-four-year-old Carlton Moreira who was shot and killed in the vicinity of Mayflower Street a few days earlier.  Burns’ detention, however, was short-lived when he somehow managed to abscond whilst in custody at the Queen Street Precinct.  While Deputy Commissioner of Police Chester Williams stopped short of divulging details of Burns’ recapture, he told the media this afternoon that a charge of escape will be tacked onto his murder indictment.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations)

“Mr. Burns was recaptured this morning and he is expected or may have already appeared in court this afternoon, charged with one count of murder and one count of escape.  And again, we continue to go after persons aggressively when we know persons are out there who have committed a crime, it is our duty to investigate and do our utmost best to bring them to justice and we have been very stern on that.  We believe that the quicker we work on these cases the better it is and the quick work of the police has always yielded good results and we want to assure the Belizean public that as a police department we will continue to do our utmost best to ensure that these crimes do not occur, but when they do occur that we can solve them with their support.  The public has been very generous to the police in terms of assisting us with information and statements, with a view to make arrests in these cases and we want to ensure that that support goes right through the trial that we can get convictions at the end of the day.”

Reporter

“Sir, are you able to indicate or prepared to indicate how police recaptured the gentleman or where exactly he was?”

Chester Williams

“I am not going to go into the specifics of the capture.  The important thing is that he is in police custody, he was recaptured this morning and he has appeared in court or should appear in court in respect to that matter that he has been charged for.”

Burns appeared before Senior Magistrate Aretha Ford this afternoon. In addition to murder and escape, he was charged with the attempted robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery of Reynold Lamb on May twenty-third. He allegedly held up Lamb with a firearm in an alley behind Lakeview Street. Burns was remanded until August fifteenth.