And while that alibi raises questions about the third murder of the year, police still haven't solved the second. Belmopan police still do not know who killed fifty seven-year-old San Ignacio taxi driver Raul Cortez. Cortez's body was found around nine on Monday morning on a deserted road off the Prayer Mountain Road in the Cayo District. Cortez had been stabbed to the back of the neck. Today a post mortem was conducted in Belize City. We found the Cortez family awaiting the results of the examination. His brother in law Mario Shish believes that Cortez was first kidnapped and then taken to the location where he was killed.Mario Shish, Brother in law
"Somebody must have forced him to go there. It had to be force because even if somebody would have told him, 'okay go back,' he would never come back on that road because four wheel drive could hardly come up there."
Jacqueline Godwin,
Why would anybody want to kill your brother in law?
Mario Shish,
"Well that's what we still asking ourselves. We still asking that same question, why would somebody hurt a person like this. This man doesn't interfere with nobody. We are still asking that question up to right now because we just can't believe it. The kind of way he got killed, when you look at it, it is so sad that you can't believe how a man could do that to a person like him. You could actually say he is a crippled man because he gets out of his car and he walks, he can't walk. So even if he had got out of the car to run away from these guys, he can't run. He can only walk and if he tries to run, he falls down. So that was what made us believe who could even think about doing that to this man. This man from he is small he is a crippled man, he is almost halfway man I believe because he just can't run, he can't defend himself. If you just push him he will fall down. He liked to do that, I guess, because that was an easy job for him."
Jacqueline Godwin,
Do you believe robbery to be a motive?
Mario Shish,
"To me, it seems something like that. I believe something like that or it could be, it wasn't normal. It was not normal for him to go and do that trip for money. It was not normal at all. I don't know what he had in the car so I don't know if anything was missing. The only thing I heard that we were talking about was a cellular phone and the phone was not there and I saw a big hole right under his neck like it is a knife hole. So I just identify him, look at it, and I walked away. So that was the only time I saw the body. Why they want to kill a man like that? He never gets into trouble and so everybody is really shocked about it and I believe everybody in the Cayo Taxi Association, I believe for sure that if anyone of them hear something, they will come up to the police."
Jacqueline Godwin,
They must be scared for their own lives.
Mario Shish,
"They are scared of their ownself. So if they do hear anything I surely believe they are going to make a report on what they hear and I still hope that the police can catch something, you know, or somebody responsible for this."
Raul Cortez who was a member of the San Ignacio Taxi Association has been running the cab service for the past eight years. If you have any information that can lead to the killer or killers call the nearest police station or Crime Stoppers at 0-800-922-8477.
