Belize City home invaded; mother/daughter robbed at knifepoint

A Belize City mother and daughter awoke horrified early Wednesday morning when two masked men entered their home and held them up at knifepoint. According to fifty-three year old Bernadette Gomez, she and her daughter Alexis were asleep in their Lizarraga Street home around one Wednesday morning when a pair of thieves broke in through a small kitchen window that had been left open at the back of the house. Gomez believes the robbers were inside for at least a half hour before she heard the noise that woke her up. But before she could get out of bed, one of the thieves put a knife to Gomez’s neck and threatened to kill everyone in the house if she screamed. The masked intruders then demanded cash and a gun but had to settle for a number of household appliances, a cell phone, jewellery valued at approximately twenty thousand dollars and other valuables. Gomez says her assailants left through another window at the rear of the house and jumped over the neighbour’s fence. Gomez, who owns the Zero Degrees Ice Cream shop, believes the perpetrators had been studying her movements before they attacked on Wednesday morning. While Gomez’s daughter escaped without physical injury, the businesswoman was cut on the neck by the knife wielding thief. Additional security measures had been put in at the home to prevent another break-in. Police have not recovered any of the stolen items and up to news time, no one had been arrested for the crime.