Baby drowns in backyard canal

It was a practice that perhaps thousands of Belizean mothers go through every week. On Tuesday, 20-year-old Georgia Neal dropped her baby son off at his grandmother’s early in the morning before heading to work. When she returned around 6:00 that evening, the scene which greeted her could not have been worse.

22-month-old John Darrel Neal was sitting inside his toy car in his grandmother’s front yard on Madam Liz Avenue. Several minutes later the boy’s body was found floating in a canal a few yards behind the back of the house.

Jacqueline Woods

The grandmother who would not speak to us on camera said she had just left the children playing in the yard and had gone inside the house to cook dinner. It was not until a few minutes later she realized baby John was missing.

Gloria Murillo who took care of baby Neal while the child’s mother was at work said because her grandson was with several other children she decided to quickly go into the house to finish cooking. Murillo said it was after she called the children inside to eat, she noticed the baby did not come inside. A frantic search led the family to the canal at the back of the house. There they discovered Neal’s body. The baby apparently had wandered to the back of the yard, fallen into the water and drowned.

John Neal was pronounced dead at the scene. Police continue to investigate what appears to be a tragic accident.