Pregnant Valley of Peace Woman Callously Killed
Joan Gabourel
The body of a pregnant eighteen-year-old woman was found on Saturday afternoon in Valley of Peace, Cayo. Joan Gabourel had been brutally murdered and her body left to rot in some bushes adjacent to a cane field on the Valley of Peace road. Gabourel was stabbed, chopped and bludgeoned and her family believes it happened on Tuesday of last week when she was last seen. She left her home in the village en route to a friend’s home to plan for an event to raise moneys for parent’s night. The student and mother of one, however, did not make it. Two days after, her family formed a search team and found her nude decomposing body. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia, Mother of Deceased
“When I reach there I saw my daughter like she was trying to get up, like he tried to get up. But she did not get up from there. My heart broke when I saw my daughter lying there; hopeless-like she can’t help herself.”
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
Elsie Garcia describes the horrific state she saw her daughter in on Saturday afternoon. The decomposing nude body of eighteen year old Joan Gabourel was discovered off the Valley of Peace Road, inside a farm land adjacent to a cane field. Gabourel, who was four months pregnant, had been brutally murdered.
Joseph Myvett
ACP Joseph Myvett, Head, National Crimes Investigation Branch
“The scene was processed where several items were recovered from the scene. The body was then transported to the medical college where a post mortem was conducted which revealed that she died from stab wounds as well as blunt force trauma.”
Gabourel was murdered cold-heartedly. Her killer stabbed her multiple times. She was chopped in her head and was hit with a blunt object. She put up a fight but her killer was stronger.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“I see her on her side and her ribs like she got stabbed. She was already decomposing. Part of her hand was missing. And half of her face was already…so I just can’t.”
Rewind four days prior-on Tuesday February twenty-sixth, at around seven p.m. was the last time that Gabourel’s family saw her alive. She left on a bicycle from her home in Valley of Peace, Cayo, en route to a friend’s house, a mile away. They believe it is then that she was attacked and murdered.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“She went to do a raise funds for parent’s night because she would have graduated in June. SO that is the last day that I saw her.”
Garcia says she began worrying when the clock struck ten o’clock. Her son was sent to search for his sister but he returned with more questions than answers.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“He came back and he told me that he did not see her anywhere. He didn’t see the bicycle either. Next day, I went out and I come back, my daughter asked Carla if Joan did not reached last night at her house. She came back for lunch and she said no. Carla said that Joan did not reach at her house that night.”
Concerns grew and Garcia lodged an official missing persons report on Thursday February twenty-eight. Family and friends were called to assist in locating Gabourel.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“On Thursday we went to look for her the entire day but we did not find her on that day. My hope was to find her alive because as I said she isn’t a person to leave just like that.”
On Saturday, the search team focused on a piece of farm land- next to a cane filed. That property is owned by one of Gabourel’s uncle.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“He looked nervous. He looked, I don’t know, but he looked aggressive and he started to tell me a lot of thing.”
The search proceeded which led to the gruesome discovery. The unfortunate news was delivered by Gabourel’s father.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“I asked him straight up if he found her. He said no sit-down. I told him that I do not want to sit down. I asked you if you found her. My other son started to cry because he could not take it and then he started to cry and he told me that he found her but not alive, dead. I stayed in shock.”
Described as a good-natured young lady, Gabourel was focused on graduating from Valley of Peace S.D.A. Academy. She had four more months to finish high school. Today classes were cancelled in light of the terrible chain of events.
The family is left wondering who would want Gabourel dead and why. They are suspecting a man who is not close to the family but close enough where he would reportedly stalk the eighteen year old student.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“She used to have a neighbour at the back of the yard and always sit down on the hammock and watch her. He watched home here, twenty-four seven. I don’t know if he liked my daughter. In the past when she went to primary school she told me one it me because I watch the man watch her in a kind of way. I asked her, if that man harass her all the time or stop her. She yes that every time she goes to school he follows her and in the evening time she meets him following her.”
That middle-aged man has not been seen since Gabourel went missing.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“He is always there twenty four seven in that hammock behind we and now the next day when we woke up he was not there. He is missing from that night. Until this moment we cannot find him.”
While investigators have yet to establish a motive, Gabourel’s family is crying for justice.
Voice of: Elsie Garcia
“I just want justice for my daughter because she does not deserve to die like that. She did not do anyone anything for her to die like.”
Investigators have two persons detained. Those persons are from the village and are not cooperating. Gabourel leaves behind a one year old daughter. Her bicycle has not been found. Hipolito Novelo, News Five.
