New suspect charged in Hummingbird murder

There may be viewers who are tired of police press conferences but even those weary souls will have to admit that today’s presentation by Commissioner Ornel Brooks, ably assisted by Minister Dean Barrow and Permanent Secretary Carlos Perdomo, was a command performance… and what it may have occasionally lacked in detail it made up in confrontational drama. There were four major updates that the police offered the press. We’ll lead off with the May second murder and mass robbery on the Hummingbird Highway.

Police went back to the orchards in the Stann Creek Valley last week and when they left, thirty one-year-old Orlando Urbina was in handcuffs. According to Commissioner Ornel Brooks, Urbina, a Salvadoran National, was arrested in a pre-dawn operation last Wednesday at the Langford Farm. Brooks says evidence found in his house makes Urbina a suspect not only in the May second holdup and murder near Roaring River, but also in two previous incidents of attempted armed robbery along the Hummingbird Highway in March.

Ornel Brooks, Commissioner of Police

“Martinez’ farm house was searched and under his mattress was found a 9mm weapon. This 9mm weapon was wrapped in a bandanna handkerchief, which fit the description of those that were used during the robbery on the second of May. We also found another bandanna handkerchief, which also fit the description of the mask that was used by the eight assailants that were taken down by us on the second of May. Both these handkerchiefs or bandanna were taken to the forensic lab and both have direct material fit with the two that were taken from the deceased who were taken down by us. With regards to the 9mm, our firearm expert, both the police and the Belize Defence Force have linked the weapon directly to the random samples of six expended shells, 9mm shells, that were taken from the scene of the robbery on the second of May.”

While the link between the expended shells and the weapon found in Urbina’s farm house has been established by forensic experts, Brooks says other pieces of the puzzle are slowly falling into place. One such connection Brooks says, is that Eluterio Vasquez and Alfonso Teul who are now awaiting trial in connection with the May second Hummingbird Highway incident, played a pivotal role in the whole process.

Ornel Brooks

“We picked them up because we knew that when these weapons were brought in from Guatemala they were stored at Teul’s and Vasquez’s home. And the people who came across the border actually camped with them, prior to attempting the robberies. It was as a result of this intelligence that we did that operation at the end of March when both Vasquez and Teul and others were picked up and deported across the border.

So we are saying then that the evidence now bears out that yes, indeed the same group who were involved back then with the two previous robberies were also involved in the May second robbery on the Hummingbird Highway. There is direct connectivity between all three incidents, as such, and we are saying as a matter of fact from intelligence that indeed both Vasquez and Teul had housed both weapons and also people who were involved in this crime.”

Although Brooks says that Vasquez and Teul were involved in two previous attempted robberies in March, the commissioner told reporters that so far they have been unable to convert police intelligence into hard evidence. But that evidence may be hard to come by as a number of eyewitnesses have placed the two suspects, now imprisoned on murder charges, miles away from the scene of the crime.

Christopher West, Senior Supervisor, H.T.A. Bowman

(May 18, 1998) “As a matter of fact I had a problem with the same guy, this Eluterio Vasquez. What he did was he had some rows before, from the Thursday that wasn’t finished. Now that they had to make twenty bags he went and get in somebody else’s row, took their best trees, so that he could have made his twenty. So when I pass by I said, “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be in this man’s row. Why didn’t you go and look for your own row.” This same guy Eluterio Vasquez. That was about ten thirty that same day the robbery was taking place.

So I don’t see how some other people could come and identify these guys as the person who were participating in the robbery, it is obviously impossible.”

Attorney General Dean Barrow, however, remained unconvinced.

Dean Barrow, Attorney General

“These people are offering evidence of an alibi. It is well known that when people are charged, alibis are produced for one reason or another for whatever reason. I am not going to say that those alibis are manufactured; I will content myself to say that as the Attorney General of this country, I am absolutely satisfied that the duty of the police and the state of the law require the police to proceed with the charges and that it is for the court, a jury of these persons peer to determine which of the different versions the jury prefers. There is no way, especially in circumstances where victims are saying, I saw this man, that we will prefer the evidence of the alibi witnesses to the evidence of those victims. If we did that the signal we would be sending to other victims would be absolutely chaotic.”

In the meantime, Urbina has joined Teul and Vasquez at the Hattieville Prison charged with the May second murder of B.D.F. volunteer soldier Genaro Che, as well as robbery and conspiracy. In addition to those charges, Urbina has been charged with attempted murder and attempted robbery in connection with the March fourteenth and twenty night incidents respectively in which two vehicles were shot at as they drove along the Hummingbird Highway. Patrick Jones, for News Five.

Brooks explained that while a police forensic examination matched the expended shell casings from the May second robbery to the nine millimeter pistol found under Urbina’s mattress, the local lab is unable to run an analysis of the slug taken from Genaro Che’s body and compare it to the signature of the pistol. That according to the Commissioner, will be done by the United States F.B.I. A positive match would pinpoint the gun in question as the murder weapon.