Steve Patten is Butchered in Sugar City on Christmas Morning

Steven Gilbert Patten

There was a grisly murder in Sugar City on Christmas morning.  Sometime around nine a.m., Orange Walk police were called out to an area on San Martin Street where they found a body with multiple stab wounds.  It was later identified as that of Steven Patten, a resident, who lived not far from where he was butchered.  News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

A Christmas Day murder in Orange Walk Town has the left the family of fifty-seven-year-old Steven Gilbert Patten in grief.  The laborer, a resident of Progress Street, left a friend’s home en route to the Old Cemetery shortly before two o’clock, in the small hours of December twenty-fifth.

Gareth Patten, Brother of Deceased

“From weh I undastand that Steve mi di stay with wah friend di celebrate di Christmas from Christmas Eve, like everybody else, and about two o’clock, or after two o’clock Christmas morning, ih left from where he was to another house not too far away to continue celebrating.  That’s from where he left to come home, from the witnesses there, about 3:30 the same Christmas morning.”

A few hours later, police would be summoned to an area not too far away on San Martin Street.  There they would discover Patten’s lifeless body.  He had been stabbed numerous times and left for dead by an unknown assailant.  Assistant Superintendent Fitzroy Yearwood:

Fitzroy Yearwood

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood Communications Director, Belize Police Department

“When investigators arrived on the scene, they found the body of Mr. Steve Gilbert Patten, fifty-seven-years-old, with multiple stab wounds… Investigators found out that he was at some relatives house a little earlier in the morning and left there sometime around 2:30.  No one heard from him until his body was discovered sometime around eight o’clock on Christmas morning.  Our investigators found what they believe is the murder weapon not too far from the scene with bloodstains on it, a knife to be exact.”

Gareth Patten has his own theory on how his sibling met his untimely demise.  He believes that Steven was offered a ride home and in his inebriated state accepted the lift.

Gareth Patten

Gareth Patten

“Somebody that knows Steven, them knowing each other, offered him a ride and instead of dropping him off home here, they passed the house and went all the way back there.  But due to Steven being under the influence, must not have taken it seriously, that whatever would occur happened and that’s where, so far that we can see, that he was murdered at that very spot.  But you know when man under the influence and thing, dehn noh really di focus pan weh really going on.”

According to the Communications Director for the Belize Police Department, Patten was moving around during curfew hours and the route he took while heading home was lonely at that time of night, making it difficult for investigators working the case.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood

“He was found on San Martin Street, near the cemetery.  His whereabouts, for us to track, between 2:30 to 8:00 which is during curfew hours would be very difficult because in that area it’s almost no one on the street, unless his assailant was lay-waiting him or was somewhere nearby waiting for him to pass.”

Nonetheless, Patten’s brother is optimistic that C.I.B. detectives will review all the surveillance cameras that are mounted on properties along that road.

Gareth Patten

“I am sure that the police officers, they will look into all those cameras that come here from there to my house and from my house to that spot back there because back there, there’s only two entrance, from San Lorenzo Road and from this side.”

Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.