Man killed on Northern Highway

In crime news the Northern Highway has claimed another victim in a traffic accident. Jacqueline Woods was on the scene immediately following her duties on last night’s newscast.

Sixty three year old Bonifacio Jimenez, Sr; a resident of Succotz village in the Cayo District and a watchman for INDECO Enterprises lost his life late Thursday evening between miles two and three on the Northern Highway. According to eyewitness reports, Jimenez had just crossed the road in front of JMA motors, and was making his way towards his workplace and home, when he was knocked down. According to the victim’s son, Omario Jimenez, his brothers were walking to open the gate for their father when a small four door station wagon, traveling towards Belize City struck his dad and continued on its way.

Bonifacio Jimenez Jr., Son

“Then the driver was going, but two persons coming on bicycles shouted to him that they heard the noise, you know that made by the car, and they shouted to him that he should stop and see if he find something and when the person got down from the car, that?s when I was coming to meet him, right, and then he never did came to see if the person was dead or alive, he just walked to the store and asked for the phone and then I went to him and told him that my father was alive still, well we were thinking that he was dying. I tell him to hurry up and call the ambulance and the police to let them hurry up and come.”

But Jimenez, who received severe head and body injuries, died at the scene. According to the police, after he was hit, Jimenez’s body was then thrown nearly eighty feet down the highway. The driver, nineteen year old Ladyville resident, Marlon Anthony Smith was taken into police custody but later released pending the outcome of their investigation. Reporting for News Five I am Jacqueline Woods.

Up to the time of his death, Bonifacio Jimenez was a member of the Alma Belicena Marimba Band. Meanwhile, Marlon Anthony Smith was formally charged by police with the offenses of driving without due care and attention, manslaughter by negligence and driving without a valid driver’s license. Smith appeared in Belize City Magistrate’s Court where he met bail of two thousand five hundred dollars plus a surety of the same amount. He is scheduled to reappear in court on May twenty second.