The Hopkins community is stunned at the murder of Sherris Stringham, who by all accounts was well-liked in the village, where a memorial is being organized for later this week, pending the arrival of her relatives. A post-mortem conducted on Stringham’s decomposing body concludes that she died from traumatic asphyxia. Assistant Commissioner of Police Joseph […]
As we said there were six murders in less than thirty hours in the Old Capital. It began on Friday afternoon when Shakedi Baizar was gunned down in an alley off Johnson Street near the Matron Roberts Polyclinic. That murder is believed to have triggered several other homicides in the city since his siblings are […]
Less than six hours after Shakedi Baizar was gunned down, a retaliatory murder occurred on Arlington Drive. Twenty-three-year-old Francis Pollard was shot several times while on Doris Books Crescent, a few minutes away from his house. Investigators confirmed today that the murder is gang-related. News Five’s Hipolito Novelo reports. Hipolito Novelo, Reporting Shots several […]
Victim number three, also on Friday night, was Daniel Lopez, a delivery man for Chon Saan Palace. The twenty-five-year-old was sent to deliver food at the corner of Basra and George Street in gang territory where street figures were mourning the murder of an associate, hours earlier. A gunman fired several shots in his direction, […]
Three murders on Friday and another three on Saturday. On Saturday morning, a guesthouse housekeeper found forty-year-old Allin Anthony Purtillo dead, covered by the hotel linen with his feet and hands bound with phone cord. Purtillo travelled from Independence to Belize City last Friday to officiate a softball game and checked into the Bayview Guesthouse […]
The unabated wave of gun violence over the weekend also claimed the life of a twenty-two-year-old resident of Pelican Street, who was shot and killed a short distance away from home and within hours of the gruesome discovery of a body at the Bayview Guesthouse. Investigators are still piecing together what may have precipitated the […]
In the wake of the violent weekend, grassroots organization One Struggle has been reaching out to grieving families in each of the affected neighborhoods. Led by former city councilor Philip Willoughby the distraught mothers turned social activists are making a bold effort at providing support for their inconsolable peers. This afternoon, they were at the […]
While processing the Pelican Street murder, fifteen minutes later, a school security guard was shot and killed while on duty. Orson Stephens was inside the Port Loyola preschool compound when his life was snuffed out. A single shot to his chest ended his life on the school’s veranda. The school authorities as well as his […]
Police confirmed today that Vildo Westby, wanted in the murder of Felix Ayuso, has been deported to Belize from Mexico. Westby was detained in Veracruz, Mexico in December 2017 for the murder of Ayuso, an activist from the island town of San Pedro. Ayuso was found stabbed multiple times inside his San Juan sub-division house. […]
Inspector Fitzroy Yearwood is a former press officer of the police department. He is a well-known for being outspoken and at times for going against the grain of the department. Over the weekend, news spread like wildfire that there was an attempt on his life. But who shot at him? The inspector says he came […]
There was a confrontation between residents of the Mayflower Street area and the Gang Suppression Unit, which raised the temperature in the area. On Sunday night, a truck full of officers descended in the neighbourhood. Sixty-four-year-old Sandra Uter, the grandmother of the slain Ghost Town boss, Kendis Flowers was pepper sprayed, which caused old wounds […]
Three persons were injured in separate shootings over the weekend. Twenty-seven-year-old Akeem Lopez is not known to police for any gang or criminal activity, but on Sunday afternoon he was marked for death by a lone gunman. The motive for the near-fatal attack is still unclear. Around one-thirty p.m., police were called out to the […]
A shooting in Ladyville, also on Sunday, has left two persons hospitalized in a serious, but stable condition. Police say they have no idea what motivated the shooting that targeted nineteen-year-old Patrick Canelo and his friend forty-five-year-old Emmerito Reyes sometime around nine p.m. The two men were socializing on Flamboyant Street in Ladyville when the […]
Sixty-one-year-old James Bradley had a terrifying experience early on Saturday morning. Bradley was sleeping inside his house at mile twelve of the George Price Highway when he was awoken by suspicious noises between two and four o’clock that morning. When he opened his eyes, he saw a masked man trying to break into his bedroom. […]
No one or organization is spared from the hands of criminals. Sometime over the weekend, the Belmopan Clinic of the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired was burglarized. When staff arrived this morning, they noted that the entire office had been cleaned by thieves. The B.C.V.I.’s Optometrist and Ophthalmic Assistant was first to report to […]
Twenty-three-year-old Shakedi Baizar of the Eight Miles community was shot and killed today in Belize City. It is reported that around this two this afternoon Baizar had just exited the Matron Roberts Clinic on Magazine Road when a man approached him near an alley. Eyewitnesses in the area say that Baizar fell at the entrance […]
Today, News Five caught up with Acting Commissioner of Police Chester Williams at an event in the city. As head of operations for the Belize Police Department, Williams was asked about the perceived incompetence of the department to secure evidence or their inaction in high profile drug plane landings. This is in reference to a […]
The postings on Facebook were made by an account belonging to a ‘Vincent Edwards,’ who is believed to be highly connected and the man on the ground during these illegal plane landings. There are reports that this person, initial referred to as a mystery man, has been sighted before and after in the vicinity of […]
The online posts have caused the Ministry of National Security, specifically the Belize Police Department, to kick into gear. Operations Commander Chester Williams told News Five today that along with the B.D.F., the police are conducting operations across Orange Walk and Corozal carrying out searches at the homes of purported drug dealers in northern Belize. […]
We also asked the acting Commissioner of Police about the case against thirty-three-year-old Carlos Lopez and thirty-seven-year-old Peter Schmidt. Earlier this week, the duo walked free of charges for the trafficking of five kilos of cocaine and possession of firearm and ammunition without a gun license. By all accounts, the prosecution had an ironclad case; […]
Fear is settling in as it is almost a week since sixty-seven-year-old Sherris Stringham has been seen in Hopkins Village. She last messaged her friends on Saturday, promising to meet up for a scheduled social on Sunday, but that was the last they heard from her. This week, police found her vehicle without its license […]
Sixty-seven-year-old Sherris Stringham is still missing. It has been five days since the American woman has last been seen. And tonight concerns for her whereabouts are growing after police found her missing vehicle. The Exterra SUV was found abandoned near the bypass in Orange Walk. Now, that is a long way from Hopkins village and […]
Police say neither they nor Matthew Smith know why he was shot on Tuesday night at the corner of Johnson Street and Cemetery Road. On Wednesday we told you that Smith was buying food when a man rode up and pointed a gun in his direction and fired shots. One of the bullets caught him […]
On Monday we reported on the case in which two men were charged with drug trafficking of five kilos of cocaine and possession of firearm and ammunition without a gun license, but freed of the charges. Thirty-three-year-old Carlos Lopez and thirty-seven-year-old Peter Schmidt both walked when their attorney made a ‘no-case submission’ because the arresting […]
Tonight, Keyur Barot and Jitendra Kumar are back in India. The duo was under protective custody in Belize because of a human trafficking allegation they made against their former boss businessman, Jack Charles. Their statements were recorded on video by the police. The men had allegedly stolen a vehicle and money from Charles in September […]
