Three charged for triple murder in San Pedro
We reported yesterday that San Pedro police had discovered the bodies of two more men whose murders they believe are linked to a drug deal gone bad that began to unfold last Friday afternoon. The first body police found was that of twenty-eight year old John Paul Saldivar, a tour guide who was shot dead between three and four last Friday afternoon at Rocky Point, sixteen miles north of San Pedro Town.
That was on Friday and this past Tuesday, the cops in the island unearthed two more bodies one mile further north from where they found Saldivar. The body of twenty-six year old James Swan Junior and the other belonging to Edwardo Gutierrez. Police believe both men were murdered by a group of five men who showed up at Rocky Point last Friday afternoon looking for drugs. Marion Ali went back to La Isla Bonita to delve deeper into the bizarre string of events.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Cops at the San Pedro Police Station were working around the clock today to solve the mystery murders of three San Pedro residents killed last Friday afternoon. While they have not yet charged anyone with the murder of John Paul Saldivar, today, they escorted three men upstairs to the San Pedro courtroom for the murders of James Swan Junior and Edwardo Gutierrez. Those charged are twenty-two year Alex Soler who handed himself in to police in the company of his attorney, Simeon Sampson on Tuesday, twenty-seven year old Victor Garnett, a labourer on the island and twenty-nine year old Brionne Swift, who was one of the first persons to make a report of the incident. National Crimes Investigator, Senior Superintendent James Magdaleno says Swift was charged after police investigations linked him to the double murders.
Sr. Supt. James Magdaleno, Cmdr., Nat’l Crimes Investigations
“We have people of those sorts that would come in and give information and they are part of the crime that is committed and this is one of the case. Because of the intense investigation that we conducted, he was linked to the crime and hence the reason he was arrested for the crime of Murder.”
But while it has taken them some time to close in on the murderer or murderers of John Paul Saldivar, police say it was better judgment coupled with information that led them to the area where the last two bodies were found.
Sr. Supt. James Magdaleno
“We decided to go north of the island in the Bacalar Chico area. We conducted searches in the area where we came upon a freshly dug area and we suspect that the persons might have been buried there. But what draw our suspicion more, that we smelt a stench in the area and that caused us to have dug that area. While digging the area we saw hair as if though a head was there, a skull. So because night was setting in we break, we covered back the hole and yesterday at first light we went back to the area, continued and did a thorough search where we discovered two bodies in that hole.”
Meanwhile Sr. Supt. Magdaleno says police do not believe Saldivar’s murderers are still in San Pedro but they have issued all-point bulletins for their arrests.
Reporting for News Five, Marion Aali.
Meanwhile, Victor Garnett, Alex Soler and Brionne Swift, all charged with the murders of James Swan Junior and Edwardo Gutierrez, have been remanded to the Hattieville Prison until March eleventh. The trio has also been charged with Conspiracy to Commit Murder. Police are looking for two more men in connection with these murders.
