The rarely violent Belize Rural area witnessed a gruesome murder this morning. At around ten, 37 year old Dean Gillett went to a house in the Fresh Water Pond area in Burrel Boom where he met his death at the end of a shotgun barrel. 7 news was first on the scene as we came up on Gillett's body on the house's front lawn.
Alfonso Noble Reporting
When we arrived just after 11 this morning, the body of 37 year old Dean Gillett was strewn on the lawn of this house at 276 Fresh Water Pond in the Burrell Boom area. He had received a shotgun blast to the head and died where he fell.
Information to police is that Gillett along with four other men visited this same house last night making armed threats and looking for a man who supposedly lived there. They didn’t find him and Gillett’s crew returned again sometime before 10 this morning. This time one of the occupants of the house was ready and armed with a shotgun. As Gillett was standing on the lawn, the male occupant of the house emerged with the shotgun and fired a shot that hit Gillett in the head.
When police arrived on the scene this morning it was only to collect information and to gather the pieces of evidence left behind. Key in their investigations now is this vehicle that is overturned in a ditch on the Boom highway.
Antonio Shal says he was chopping this yard that's adjacent to the Boom highway when he saw the trooper barreling down the road being closely followed by a red pathfinder.
Antonio Shal – Car Chase Witness
“At 10:45 this accident happened. This vehicle was coming this way and it just turn over and the other vehicle was coming, it was a red vehicle with dark glass. It just came and stopped for a little while and it drive through this property. It burst the fence and went there in the property so the other two guys was running in the property and they went all the way there and one went across the road and then come back here where the accident happened. So this is what happened to me and the almost knock me too. I ran yes because I was chopping in Mr. Tom’s property. So I just run in and went in my room because I don’t know what’s up if these guys, maybe they were fighting right.”
“I don’t know what’s happening, these two guys that was in the accident they come out of the vehicle and they run in the property and the other one is coming too and he burst in the property and he burst the fence too, the wire.”
“I got scared when I see this thing because suddenly this happen. I don’t know what is happening.”
His scare however pales in comparison that of those who were inside the home at the time as now there is no telling what kind of retaliatory action may be plotted against them.
Police have detained some men who were with Gillett as well as some of the occupants of the house. Of note is that the home in question had been mysteriously shot up about a year and a half ago. At the time residents had no motive or suspect for the shooting. And if the name Dean Gillett sounds familiar, it's because just last week, he was arrested and charged for handling thousands of dollar s in stolen goods bought with a forged government checque.