Bz. City man murdered for his bike
Tonight, yet another senseless murder has been added to the list of Belize City crimes. Men have died for dogs, been murdered for mangoes, and iced over an ideal. On Thursday, a storage worker was butchered for his bike. Ann-Marie Williams reports.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
Russell Smith, a storage worker in his late forties, met his untimely death sometime after 11:00 last night, when he was stabbed to the right side of chest and upper arm. Reports are that Smith was drinking a Guinness, while leaning on his new blue mountain bicycle, right here on King Street in Belize City, when he was approached by a dark complexioned man.
The lone eyewitness to the incident is Eddison Gill, a watchman who lives right here on Amara Avenue. Gill said that he was talking to Smith at the time, at the corner of the lane, when the shocking incident occurred.
Eddison Gill, Eyewitness
“While talking, there come a young man from up Amara, swinging and coming on the sidewalk. He said to me, “please give me a cigarette.” I said, “I don’t have no cigarette.” So he said to Mr. Smith, “Give me a cigarette.” Mr. Smith told him he no smoke. So he got off his bike and ordered a cigarette from the Chinese man and the Chinese man took long. So I just walked away, stepping back about eight maybe ten feet and look down Amara to see if the traffic in my work area is clear. When I do glance back, I saw this young man got Mr. Smith gripped in mouth with his left hand and the knife in his right hand…”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Stabbing him in the abdomen?”
Eddison Gill
“Yeah. So, Smith was trying to fight off, so he slashed him on the hand with the knife. I said, “Hey, whe that fah?” and I went to try grab him and he made two big stabs at me.”
Gill says the assailant then rode off with Smith’s bicycle, leaving him to die on the ground. Gill feels that if police response was quicker, his friend would still be alive.
Eddison Gill
“The Chinese man shut down his little hole at his window that was open. And from there I hollered, “Hey come, help. This man di juk up the man out yah.” Nobody to me rescue, so I run cross to Lion King and tell them to ring for the policeman because a man got stab up. That’s how the young lady behind the bar and ring, and the police…well they never came up to when I come back out of the club. When I come out a taxi was parked at the spot and that’s how me and three other young man pick up Mr. Smith and put him in the vehicle and went along with him.”
Russell Smith was pronounced dead on arrival at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
