Suspect charged in taxi driver murder

A week after the murder of taxi driver Mariano Gomez in San Ignacio, Cayo police have charged a Guatemalan with the killing. Gomez’s son told police a Hispanic man hired his father to take him to Branch Mouth on the night of August 5th. When Mariano Gomez failed to return, his son went looking for him and found his taxi by the side of the Branch Mouth Road. His father was inside unconscious with a bullet wound to his chest. He died sometime later at the Belmopan Hospital. On August 10th police detained Carlos Enrique Bautista Cristales and Maria Araceli Aguilar after they were tipped off that a gun, which may have been used in the shooting, was buried on the Benque Viejo Road. Police located the twenty-two caliber Colt automatic and ammunition and Cristales was charged with murder. He and Aguilar were both charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm. They pleaded guilty and were fined. The motive for the killing is not known.