Infant dies in well in Bella Vista Village

For the second time in just over a month, a child from the Stann Creek district has died in what appears to be a tragic accident. Police say around five on Wednesday evening, they visited a home in Bella Vista village where they saw the body of a baby girl floating inside a well. According to the victim’s mother, thirty-six year old Florentina Maldonado, she left her eighteen month old daughter Carla playing in the yard. But Maldonado says when she looked outside a short time later she didn’t see the baby and upon searching the area, she made the gruesome discovery. Carla was pulled from the well and rushed to the Bella Vista Medical Clinic but was pronounced dead on arrival. Investigators say they are now awaiting the results of a post mortem examination to determine the cause of death. On September twenty-ninth, in nearby Independence Village, two year-old Raheem Martinez, who had been left home alone, died when it is believed a lit candle set fire to his house. Martinez’s father, twenty-eight year old Remijio Lorenzo Martinez, was later charged with Causing Death by Careless Conduct.