Man charged in accidental death

“I thought it was an eye of a deer.” That’s what thirty one year old Modesto Matamoros is telling police as he was formally arrested and charged in the death of fourteen year old Juan Carlos Orellano. According to police both Matamoros and Orellano went hunting in the jungle near Silver Creek Village in the Stann Creek District. Upon reaching three yards into the bush, Matamoros told police they heard a noise that sounded like the hooves of a deer. That was when Matamoros said he told Orellano to stay put as he made his way around a clump of trees. Matamoros reports that he as well as Orellano carried lighted flashlights, and when he turned to point his gun in the direction of the sound, he saw a red light about three feet in the air that looked like the eye of a deer. He opened fire and heard Orellano scream out in pain that Matamoros had just shot him. Orellano was rushed to the Dangriga Hospital and then later transferred to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where he died of a gunshot wound to the pelvis. Meanwhile Matamoros, a Honduran national and farmer of San Roman Village in the Stann Creek District, has been charged with death by careless conduct and manslaughter by negligence. He has also been charged with the possession of an unlicensed firearm.