Woman alleges Garbutt family killed her friends
There is an expression attributed to the U.S. mafia which says that when a man has been murdered he is “sleeping with the fishes”. Tonight that euphemism applies to three more Belizeans whose names are now added to those of a family of five who have been missing and presumed dead for over a month. While no hard evidence exists to link the two crimes, police and streetcorner detectives alike are convinced that a powdery white species called, “square grouper” is heavily involved in both.
One month after Emil Franklin, Geoffrey Zuniga, Lindon ‘Bubbles” Raymond discovered a skiff belonging to missing lighthouse keeper Charles Garbutt partially submerged in the English Caye channel, the three men themselves have become the latest victims in a deadly drama that has now claimed eight lives. The three men were found, also near English Caye, apparently shot to death execution style.
Franklin’s girlfriend Janet Vasquez, who normally would have been diving with the men, was instead cooking Sunday dinner at their fishing camp. Today she returned to Belize City to face the bad news.
Janet Vasquez
“Sunday, I decide to stay home, stay home and cook so that they can come home and eat that Sunday. So I waited Sunday they didn’t come back, so I didn’t think nothing because I say it just could be that they cross Turneffe and will return tomorrow morning. Monday come and they did not show up, so I was kind of worried till I heard the news on the radio that they find two men tied up. Well I didn’t catch up on the rest of the news, that’s all I heard.”
Vasquez said it was not until this morning, when her mother along with members of the Belize Maritime Wing came to the caye that she learned the truth.
C.I.B. Head Simeon Alvarez says all three men were found in the water tied to the skiff. According to Alvarez, the men received a total of twenty-five shotgun pellets to their heads, hands and chests. Alvarez says the police believe the men were killed as soon as they came up from diving.
A.I.P. Simeon Alvarez, Head of C.I.B.
“At this time I cannot really say if they were tortured but I believe that they were shot just immediately after they came up from diving and were about to board their boat. So I believe that the culprits were in the immediate area awaiting for them to come up and then fired shots at them. However, all three bodies were found beneath the skiff, they were tied onto the skiff, all three bodies. Two were floating and the other one was down in the water.”
It is still not known exactly what happened to the men at sea but Vasquez believes her boyfriend and friends were tortured and killed because they were suspected of being involved in the disappearance of Charles Garbutt, his wife and three young children in December.
In an interview with News Five on December twenty fourth, following his release on bail on theft charges, Emil Franklin told us that all he and his crew were guilty of was stealing Garbutt’s abandoned engine and skiff. On that day we also saw Zuniga, who was sitting inside the skiff showing us the position in which they found the Yamaha outboard engine.
Emil Franklin
(File: Dec. 24th, 1998) “We didn’t see anything else float up out of the water when we hauled it out. Just water.”
Q: “No groceries, no items?”
Emil Franklin
“No, nothing at all.”
Janet Vasquez
“We made a mistake not reporting the boat, right, but this was just a mistake. Nobody, we did not do anything to nobody.”
Janet Vasquez says two weeks after the men were released from police custody, a member of the Garbutt family approached them at the caye but when Franklin tried to explain to them that they had nothing to do with the incident, she says he threatened them.
Janet Vasquez
“They tell Emil that this thing will not stay like that; their family can’t go like that because we found the boat, right. And they had a feeling that we did something to the people them.”
Q: “We understand that Emil, I don’t know how true this is, but that Emil was involved in drug trafficking and people are speculating that maybe it was a drug deal gone bad?”
Janet Vasquez
“If Emil had anything to do with drug trafficking, Emil wouldn’t have been working at the caye. You understand me? And he work hard at the caye. He work so hard that if he had drugs, why would he have been working at the caye? Or why should he do anybody anything, if he had drugs? He no have no drugs. He came from States to make a life down here. He no have no record at the Police Station saying that they found him with drugs or catch him with some drugs… nothing.”
Police say at this time they do not know whether the killing is linked to the Garbutts disappearance, or if the men were killed over a drug deal that backfired. The Criminal Investigation Branch is investigating the murder from all angles… of which there is no shortage. Attempts to reach members of the Garbutt family for comment were unsuccessful as they are believed to be at the Cayes off Placencia.
