Murder at Fire Station and 17 year old murdered in Toledo

Charles Woodeye

In the southernmost reaches of the country a resident of Jalacte Village was fatally stabbed at the start of the weekend.  Details of the murder remain sketchy and News Five will have more information on the homicide as soon as it is made available by the Police Department.  Toledo, nonetheless, was not the only district affected with a fatality. The shootings in the Belize District had not claimed any life up to daybreak on Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, however, a city resident was murdered at the Dolphin Street Fire Station, just around the corner from the Eastern Division Police Headquarters.  The murder victim, Charles Woodeye, has a history of court appearances. In the following report, News Five’s Andrea Polanco chronicles how this victim went from accused murderer to a citizen who recently filed a lawsuit against the government, a few weeks before his death.

Andrea Polanco, Reporting

Street figure, twenty four year old Charles Woodeye was killed just a stone’s throw away from his home on Dolphin Street. Around three Sunday afternoon, Woodeye was inside the Fire Station playing a game of dominoes around this table with three other men. According to a witness, the gunman passed in front of the station and returned shortly after. The lone shooter walked in and fired approximately three shots, hitting Woodeye in the chest. He was rushed to the hospital by one of his friends, who told us that Woodeye died on the way to the KHMH. Today, only two small dents on this parked fire truck is proof of Sunday’s incident.

On January thirteen of 2010, Woodeye was released from the Belize Central Prison where he had served a year for the murder of San Pedro tour guide, John Paul Saldivar. Woodeye, along with four other men were charged with the shooting death Saldivar, which occurred on January 2009 in the rocky point area of San Pedro. The men were release when the office of the DPP was unable to present evidence implicating them in the murder.

Karim Musa, Defense Attorney

“Myself along with Senior Counsel, Ellis Arnold, represented Charles Woodeye, Micah Thompson, Shelton August and Kyle Patnett. Michael Peyrefitte represented the fifth co-accused, Mister Eric Swan. What transpired this morning, the prosecutor, Mister John Sanchez, presented a directive from the DPP informing the court that the DPP had made a decision to withdraw all charges against all five accused men.”

Anita Nembhard, Freelance Court Reporter

“What does this mean for the five accused men or the four that you represented? Does it mean that since it was withdrawal that this murder charge can be brought back against these men?”

Karim Musa

Karim Musa

“Well of course, but the DPP and the police would need to have some evidence and throughout this case—this case has been going on for the past year and it’s been adjourned I’d say ten times and on each occasion the prosecution failed to present a single piece of evidence against any of the accused. So I don’t see how they could try to re-arrest these men. I have already advised them that they ought to take a constitutional case against the Police Department and by extension against the Government of Belize for wrongfully detaining them and in my opinion for maliciously prosecuting them over this year particularly because there is no evidence and they knew all along that there were no evidence against these men. So they ought not to have held them for an entire year and in my opinion amounts to nothing short of preventative detention.”

Over a year and half later, on July thirteenth, 2011, Woodeye, Shelton August and Micah Thompson, three of the five men imprisoned for the murder of Saldivar, were in court suing the Attorney General’s Office for wrongful imprisonment. Woodeye testified that the murder charge cost him his job.  He provided evidence in the form of pay slips to the court to show he was gainfully employed at the time of his arrest. The matter was adjourned until September first when closing arguments will be heard before Justice Minnet Hafiz.

Reporting for News Five, I am Andrea Polanco.

This is the second crime, to be committed with a gun, to take place within the fire station in less than six months. Back in May of this year, Evan Martinez, was inside the office when a gunman with a mask walked in and a struggle ensued. During the process the gun went off and a bullet caught, Kendis Longsworth in the shoulder. Longsworth, along with two other employees, were asleep at the time inside the bunkroom.