Vengeful murder… life in prison for businessman

It was one of the most horrendous killings in the south of Belize, when in September of 2007 the nude body of nineteen year old Mirna Figueroa was found in some bushes off a dirt road about two miles into the Hopkins Road. She had been sexually molested and strangled to death and near her police found a two foot long piece of vine, locally known as Ti-tai. Just a few days before police discovered Figueroa’s body, her three year old son was found wandering in the middle of the night on the Southern Highway. A motorist stopped for the child and took him to the Independence Police Station after his mother was nowhere to be seen. Soon after, a trail of evidence led police to Figueroa’s own brother-in-law, forty-six year old businessman Miguel Herrera. And the motive for the murder turned out to be one of vengeance. In court this past Wednesday, Herrera was convicted of the slaying because he reportedly killed Figueroa after her sister, with whom he had an intimate relationship, broke up with him. He had vowed to her that he would kill one of her sisters. On the night of the incident, when Figueroa did not make it to her Silk Grass home, no one made much of it because she had told her common-law husband that she would go to look for employment in Caye Caulker. It later turned out that Figueroa and the child were abducted from home and taken to the spot where she was killed. But evidence also came out in court this week that Herrera wanted to throw the little boy in the Kendall River but one of four other men who were in the vehicle with Herrera the night of the killing took the child to a nearby bus stop with the hope that he would be rescued. The four, which also included Herrera’s son, Miguel Junior, were later charged with Murder and Conspiracy to Commit Murder but those charges were lifted. Justice Troadio Gonzalez sentenced Herrera to life imprisonment and the little boy, now four, is living with his grandmother. Oswald Twist defended Herrera in Dangriga while the Director of Public Prosecutions, Cheryl-Lynn Branker-Taitt presented the case for the Crown.