A badly decomposed body was found yesterday in a mangrove swamp in the Faber's Road area of Belize City. At newstime the only thing investigators were certain of is that it is the body of a male and that foul play was involved. Other that it is pure speculation which has led police back to the weekend of July 30th and the report of a missing security guard and a fire at the Sister Clara Muhammad Muslim School. Those same leads led Keith Swift today to the family of the missing security guard Benito Reyes who suspect the body might be his.
Keith SwiftReporting,
July 30th was the last time Benito Reyes’ mother, his brother, and his four children saw him alive. Reyes had been missing 18 days almost three weeks before his family got a new lead in his disappearance. Benito Reyes remained missing until yesterday evening around 5:30 p.m when a group of kids who were shooting birds in the mangrove swamp off the faber’s road area made the harrowing discovery of a decomposed body. His brother Elvin Palacio came to identify the body and while up to now there is still no positive ID, Elvin believes the body they found was Benito.
Elvin Palacio,
“The only thing I could have seen was a skull head and to me he looks like he was lying down on his face. The head was all skulled(sic) up and the hair all rolled backway(sic) maybe because the sun was catching him for a couple days and only his pants I could have seen between two logs. I saw the pants and told the guys that looks like the khaki pants he had on the last time we saw him.”
That is still only speculation at this point and police stress their uncertainty on whether the body found in the mangrove swamp is Benito Reyes. His brother though is more convinced and he is also convinced that if it is Benito then he was murdered.
Elvin Palacio,
“I think that some guys probably took my brother and hmm.....I don’t want to speculate but I believe that he didn’t go anywhere and he could be the person they found yesterday after what everyone is telling me. That could be him right there.”
KS: You believe he was murdered?
Elvin Palacio,
“That body that is there was murdered because the skull is busted up and it had a great like skull fracture. So that body that is there was killed and if that body is my brother then they killed him yes.”
And if that is his brother then Elvin traces his disappearance back to Friday July 30th when an building containing thousands of dollars in used clothing was burnt down by arsonists in the yard of the Muslim school. That is the building Reyes guarded and the night of the fire was the night he failed to show up for work. That is one theory and another is that it might have been drug related.
Elvin Palacio,
“Although we are poor and everything I see to it that things in this yard run as smooth as possible with the little I have. I can’t understand who would do this. Rumors did have that things were going on with him. Information came to me that some guys came here and interfered with him in his house. But he didn’t tell me that he had problems with anyone but then you know now people are telling me that he did have problems with some people who claim that he had something of theirs or something of value to them.”
Its all speculation for the family at this point and the only certainty is that a brother, son, and father could be dead and it might have taken 18 days to find him.
The body was examined at the site but police say that due to the advanced state of decomposition the medical examiner has requested more time before issuing a case of death. Benito Reyes is a naturalized Belizean who migrated from Guatemala with his family in 1971.