Roaring Creek resident murdered in cold blood in front of his residence

Nigel Neal

Roaring Creek this morning was the scene of an execution style murder. Just after eight o’clock, a resident was executed within minutes of leaving the police station.  The gunman appeared to have been following thirty-four year old Nigel Neal as he headed to his mother’s house. A hail of bullets was unleashed on him immediately in front of the house of his mother who was at the market purchasing vegetables. Duane Moody spoke to Neal’s grieving mother as well as to a person who saw the murder unfold. Here is his report.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Thirty-four year old Nigel Neal was executed just after eight this morning in the village of Roaring Creek just outside of Belmopan. The cold blooded killing occurred at the entrance to the yard where his family house is located. His mother, Alice Burgess, says that she was at the Agricultural Trade Show Grounds when her eldest son came crying to her.

Alice Burgess

Alice Burgess, Mother of Deceased

“I saw the police jeep coming this way and I said I wonder what happened. I said, I hope it’s not my two sons in no problem. I went over to the other stall to buy some vegetables. Meanwhile I’m there I saw my oldest coming towards me crying. I said what happened? Ih say mommy dehn kill Nigel. I said what? He said yes.  When I reached here this morning, I saw his body lying on the ground and they had him covered up. So I told my son, I want to see his face. So when the police uncovered his face, I saw him all his face full of blood and I couldn’t take it. So my son back me and bring me inside.”

Neal, who is a deportee, every Friday morning routinely, had to check in at the Belmopan Police Station as a bail requirement for a robbery charge he was facing in court. He was returning home twenty minutes after leaving the station when it is believed that he was lay-waited by a lone gunman who fired several shots at him. Blue, as he was affectionately known, was hit five times to the face and chest.

Sinquest Martinez

Insp. Sinquest Martinez, O.C., Belmopan Police

“Mister Neal was here earlier in the morning—prior to his death—he was here about twenty to twenty-five minutes coming and signing his bail due to court order. And within half an hour time, we received information that he was being gunned down in front of his mother’s house in Roaring Creek Village.  I would not say that he is known to us as a trouble maker, but he has been in and out of the Belmopan Police Station; he was a deportee and he had run-ins with the law so he is well known to us.”

After the killing, the gunman it is said then ran to a nearby football field where he was met by another person of Hispanic descent and then they made good their escape.

Voice of: Witness

“I hear gunshots; about five to six bullet I hear. My daughter run out and ih say, “Daddy, daddy; dah Blue dead. Dah Blue dehn shot.” I said no, noh soh quick. Ih just gone dah Belmopan and gone sign in. So I mi expect ahn fi wah return so quick. So I think dehn same one weh kill ahn, I think follow ahn all di way dah Belmopan and make sure ih gone sign in and when ih come back, then dehn gun ahn down. When I peep through the window, I see two somebody di run—wah Spanish and wah next clear personnel—going di run across the road. But some people mi deh out deh. So people see and people know. But I know here dah Roaring Creek people won’t talk.”

According to Burgess, her son had been receiving death threats in relation to a robbery and murder involving the Hyde brothers that occurred in April of this year.

Duane Moody

“Who could have done it and why?”

Alice Burgess

“I don’t know. Probably it’s the people that threatening him. He always get message from people that say that they want to kill him. They don’t like him because he know about some death that happened in the village. And he swear to all this god, kneel down and ask god why he let them blame him for something that he don’t know about. And he cried and tell me say I don’t do it and I know nothing about it so why they have to blame me for things that I don’t know about.”

About an hour after police processed the scene, two men, who fit the description of the perpetrators, were detained by officers near the Guanacaste National Park at the cut off to Belmopan. Neal would have turned thirty-five on October thirty-first. Duane Moody for News Five.