…And 53 year old murdered in Cayo

The other murder that occurred over the Easter weekend happened in the ordinarily serene lower Barton Creek area in the Cayo District where police discovered the body of one of its residents. Felix Cocom was viciously murdered, shot multiple times to the abdomen and chest. News Five traveled west to try to find out what happened to Felix Cocom.

Marion Ali, Reporting
San Ignacio police do not yet have any motive of the murder of fifty-three year old Felix Cocom of Lower Barton Creek but they are following a possible leads as they say Cocom was no stranger to the law.

Sr. Supt. Paul Wade, O.C., San Ignacio
“He’s not new at all to the law and we have had reports that we have dealt with in the past.”

Marion Ali
“That he had aggrieved somebody?”

Sr. Supt. Paul Wade
“There are reports that he used to conduct theft of items from people in the area, particularly, the Mennonite community, so as I said he’s not new to the police at all.”

Felix’s mother, Edwarda Cocom, last saw her son on Wednesday when he brought produce at Red Creek for her to sell. The eighty-two year old agrees that he had run-ins with the law because he had a drug addiction. However, she believes her son was murdered not for stealing but for his own possessions.

Edwarda Cocom
“Ih tell me dat some aliens, as yoh call dehn, dehn live more lower down, dehn mih use to bother him, ih mih raise foul and then ih get and Felix (Speaking in Spanish) tek it fi habit and den he get annoyed and he tell fi stop it, he use to go deh and tek ih things dem and dat is what I get to understand. Dehn use to tek ih plantain.”

Police found Cocom’s body on his farm in Lower Barton Creek about five miles off the Western Highway on a feeder road in Blackman Eddy Village.

Marion Ali
“But this is not where police believe Cocom met his fate, in fact by the evidence or the lack thereof, they suspect he was murdered elsewhere and his body brought and dumped on a farm here in the Lower Barton Creek area.”

Sgt. Reymundo Reyes
“We never saw no trace of blood on the ground so we do not believe that to be the murder scene. We believe that his body was taken to that location and left there and that was how it was found.”

Marion Ali
“I understand that during the post mortem you also observed that there was an injury to his head?”

Sgt. Reymundo Reyes
“Yes, after the—or during the post mortem the doctor opened the head section, we noticed that he had bruises on the extreme right hand side of the head which the doctor suspects or believes that cause of a blunt object, he get actually a hard knock with maybe a piece of lumber or stick. According to the doctor, at this point in time, we could say or estimate that his death was on the twelfth, which was on Sunday we cannot establish the time if it was in the morning or evening.”

Police will revisit Cocom’s farm on Wednesday to try to gather more evidence.

Because of the state of decomposition, the post mortem was conducted on a dirt road off the Boom/Hattieville Road.

Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.