Clifford Matute is Executed in Teakettle Village
Clifford Matute
Turning to other news….it was an exceptionally violent weekend across the country. We start the crime news with a homicide in the west. Thirty-four-year-old Clifford Anthony Matute was murdered after midnight, on Saturday morning, in Teakettle Village, Cayo. He was at home on his verandah when two men on a motorcycle appeared. One of the men pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and fired at Matute. Matute jumped off the verandah and ran to the back of his house. He was pursued and shot to death. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
The tranquility of Teakettle Village in Cayo was shattered over the weekend. The body of thirty-four-year-old Clifford Matute was discovered behind his house, minutes after shots rang out. He had been executed with a sawed-off shotgun. According to police, Matute was at his home when the killers appeared.
ACP Joseph Myvett, Head, National Crimes Investigation Branch
“What we know so far is that sometime just before midnight, two persons arrived on a motorcycle at the resident of Clifford Matute where one of them called out for him and as he approached his veranda he was fired upon by that person. From the processing of the scene it appears that it was fired from a shotgun and one of those shots were fired a distance from probably twenty feet or so.”
The victim reportedly attempted to flee by escaping through the back of the yard. An injured Matute, however, was not able to make it far. The gunman pursued him and finished the job. The sounds of gunshots alerted the neighbors that somebody had been shot. This eyewitness says he saw the gunman running away from the scene before escaping on a motorcycle with his accomplice.
Joseph Myvett
Voice of: Eyewitness
“I heard some gunshots burst off. I ran to my front door and I saw a guy with a gun on his hand the run pass my house. So I haul back into my house. When the cycle picked him up in my areas, I ran out and when I ran out I see my family car door open so I said well let us see what is going on here. I hollered for him and usually when I holler for him three times, he answers. He never did answer so I hope it was not him. I went to my uncle house and I asked him for a flashlight and by then when I got the flashlight I went by the church because they told me that shots came from beside the church. I flash behind the house and I saw the man’s body on the ground. I ran there and I hollered his name. I told him to get up. He didn’t get up. So, by that time he already got shot.”
He was shot to the head, shoulder, chest and lower body. Investigators are working on establishing a motive, including the possibility that he was killed by someone he knew.
Voice of: Eyewitness
“They say that somebody was with him on the veranda earlier so we don’t know if it was a setup or what. Someone was in the veranda sitting with him earlier and after he left at around eleven when my uncle came from work because he thought it was me because I always sit down on the veranda sometimes. When that person left, about a half an hour afterward it happened.”
Voice of: Cassandra Arnold, Family Friend
“I know sometimes he usually waits to go pick up his wife from work because she usually comes out late from work. He must have been killing time to go and pick up his wife.”
Reporter
“Do you know if he had any type of enemies or anybody who would want to harm him like that?”
Voice of: Cassandra Arnold
“I don’t about that. In the past years, I don’t know him as a person like that. I just know him for ten years. He is a person who stays home. He doesn’t go anywhere; from work to home.”
ACP Joseph Myvett
“We are still trying to determine a motive”
Reporter
“Do police have reason to suspect that the victim was killed by someone he knew?”
ACP Joseph Myvett
“Could have been, yes we are looking at that possibility.”
Investigators are seeking two known suspects. Hipolito Novelo, News Five.
