Two men are dead and police are trying to determine if drug trafficking was the cause. The two men, 28-year-old Epitacio Navarro and 46-year-old Michael Usher were being taken to the KHMH on Saturday morning to be treated but died before doctors could attend to them. Police were called in after both men were described as suffering from the same condition and mysteriously died within hours of each other. Now police suspect that the men died after drugs that they were transporting inside their intestines ruptured causing massive overdoses. We were at the hospital today as police and family members looked for a reason for the deaths.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Family members for 28 year old Epitacio Navarro and 46 year old Michael Usher waited outside the hospital's morgue to for the post mortem results on their family member's bodies. As they did they had more questions than they could answer. Edilberto Lopez, brother of Navarro, says he last spoke to his brother about three weeks ago when he was saying that he along with three other men would travel to the U.S. to purchase a vehicle.
Edilberto Lopez, Navarro's Brother
"He told he was going to the States to bring vehicle with three other persons, that is what he told me. When he come back to Belize he was sick. He called my sister and asked her for a plane ticket to come back home. We found out he was in Panama. He came about 10 the Friday morning and after that the Friday night he started to experience loose bowels because that is what he suffer with."
Navarro's Sister,
"He called me and I told him I couldn't send the money Thursday because bank closed in P.G. I told him I would send it the Friday. I sent it the Friday and he came the same day. He came 11:30 according to what I know because I called my mom and she said he had already reached. She asked me if I wanted to talk to him and I said no because like how she told me he felt bad I wanted to leave him to rest and I would talk to him on Sunday. So then I got called Saturday morning and they told me my brother dead. I started to wonder what happened, if he got food poisoning over there in Panama or what. They told me my brother went his three friends but I don't know who are the 3 friends because like how I live all the way in P.G. I know nothing, I don't know what is going on."
That is the same position Errol Usher finds himself today as he introduced himself to Navarro's family members. He says he too was at home in Oakland when he got a call telling him his brother was dead.
Errol Usher, Michael Usher's Brother
"I was home Saturday morning and I got a call he died of a heart attack so we just rushed and came down."
Alfonso Noble,
Now that's Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, its 3 days and there's still an investigation going on.
Errol Usher,
"I have no idea why its going on. They just called me here to identify the body, that's all."
And it's a surprise to the police who became involved in the case since yesterday as both men died on Saturday morning while being taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
Navarro's Sister,
"Yesterday when I was over there I heard a police was talking and he told us that we can't give you your brother's body now because they have a next body, a boy just like who come from Panama, who died the same way. So now I start to think what is going on, it looks like they know and they don't want to say anything. It seems that they know and they are not coming straight up and saying what is happening."
What police were saying at the time is that both deaths may be related in that the men were suspected of being mules in transporting heroin into the country.
Alfonso Noble,
Is this is the kind of thing you would have expected of your brother?
Errol Usher, Michael Usher's Brother
"No, no. No sir, not at all."
Edilberto Lopez, Navarro's Brother
"We don't know what our little brother is doing. He told us that he was going to the States to bring a vehicle. We can't be behind him like a little boy, he is a big man. The police can investigate we, we are not a family who sells drug or who deals with drugs."
Navarro's Sister,
"We are waiting for the autopsy. If it is that they will tell we then we can't do nothing, that is their problem. That is their investigation and it is they who have to go ahead and try solve more but we want the body because we don't have money; we have to bury our brother."
Late this afternoon police did give them their brother's body after informing them that he had died as a result of a controlled drug overdose. At the end of the post mortem police retrieved 48 latex packets of what is believed to be heroin from the body of Navarro. Three other packets that are believed to have ruptured inside of him were also retrieved from his intestines. At the end of it police took in the samples for testing to verify that it was heroin in the packets.
Preliminary weights taken of the substance in the 51 latex packets weigh in at 380 grams, just three ounces shy of a pound. At US$10,000 per ounce, he is estimated to have carried $130,000 inside him. Police will not conduct a post mortem on the body of Michael Usher today. Usher's case may bear greater inspection, as he was known to have medical problems, and reportedly had difficulty traveling.
Typically, drug mules, as they are called, carry heroin stuffed into condoms in their intestines and release it when they arrive at the drop off point usually by taking a laxative when they arrive at their destination. When this fails, they risk losing their lives because the acids produced in the stomach, rupture the latex condoms typically within 36 hours leading to a massive overdose and inevitably death. Drug specialists in the Police Department consider this an unusual event in Belize and possibly a first because there is no known local market for heroin.
