Efrain Beltran is Arrested for the Chopping Death of Guatemalan Laborer

Elmer Salazar

A suspect in the gruesome machete murder of Guatemalan labourer Elmer Salazar has been arrested.  The apprehension of Efrain Beltran earlier today comes after he allegedly chopped Salazar to death on the compound of Belize Marine and Mooring Services on Monday evening.  The incident occurred near mile four and a half on the George Price Highway when Salazar, a construction worker who was employed with the company, showed up at the jobsite.  Words were reportedly exchanged between the two men and Beltran is said to have produced a cutlass.  During the altercation, Salazar was chopped multiple times to the neck.  Despite an attempt to rush him to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, the forty-three-year-old succumbed to his injuries.  In the wake of the deadly attack, the machete-wielding suspect fled the scene, purportedly in a vehicle that was being driven by Salazar.  The Mazda pickup was recovered somewhere along Central American Boulevard later that evening, but the suspect was nowhere to be seen.  Beltran, described by his colleagues at BMMS, is an elderly labourer.  It is expected that he will be charged and subsequently arraigned for the crime of murder.