While most of you were watching the news last night, another young Belize City man was shot. He was seriously injured, and by the end of the night – it would be Belize City’s 22nd murder of the year. And, similar to what you saw on last nights crime news, there is another grieving family, bewildered by the violent assault, and looking for answers in a tangle of questions.
Glenda Madrill, Mother of Murder Victim
“When I went to the hospital I saw him on the bed and how they were putting things on him and they took him to the theatre and while he was in operation then the doctor said they cannot do anything for him.”
Glenda Madrill never heard the gunshots that took the life of her son twenty six year old boat captain Christino Madrill. The shooting occurred only a short distance away from the family’s residence where Glenda was watching the local news when someone came to the house and said that her child had been killed. Glenda says she still cannot believe that he is gone.
Glenda Madrill,
“They come tell me that they killed my little boy out there. So I just run out and get into my vehicle and went to the hospital and when I get there, the doctor told me that he was serious. So I just make up my mind right but I didn’t believe that my son would have gone like this.”
Around six fifty on Monday evening Christino Madrill was sitting on the trunk of his black Mazda car eating the food he had just bought. The vehicle was parked at the corner of Lancaster and Castle Streets.
At the crime scene police found no expended shells but the information they received describes the killer as a dark complexioned young man. He was dressed in a brown checkered shirt and a black peak cap on his head. He rode up on a black beach cruiser bicycle, pulled out a gun and fired three shots.
Glenda Madrill,
“He get one in his belly, he got a shot in his belly, one in the left part of his shoulder and one in the back.”
Christino Madrill died at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, four hours after he got there. The family has no answers about who may have killed him or why. Glenda Madrill discussed the possibilities.
Jacqueline Godwin,
Do you believe he was followed or do you believe someone was watching him for quite sometime because why would they have known that he would have been at that location?
Glenda Madrill,
“Well, a shootout had happen on Victoria Street and he always use to hang out with some lot of boys so like this person may have had it for all of them who hang together yes, so the he they caught by himself so they did him.
Well in front of my face, I noh know but behind my back I noh know what he does out there so. This life is for real and what goes around have to come back round. Noh care how long it takes, three, four, five years - what goes around have to come back around.”
Another senseless shooting and another mother, wife and young daughter left to mourn.
Vanessa Bowden, Common Law Wife of Murder Victim
“Close real close, this is his number one pride. His first and only. They do not know. All that they are into is gun thing, gun thing but the world is a cycle. It might not happen to them tomorrow but it will happen it will come back.
Well I tell her that her daddy went to sleep and he will not get up back and this morning when she got up she is like, she tell me to let me take her, let me take her to her father so she can wake him up, so she could let him get up.
I just want them to know that God is not sleeping and he does not like ugly and like I said before the world is a cycle. What goes around comes around. They took away her father from she and they never know - they might take away their mother from them.”
Glenda Madrill,
“I always say I just hope that on no day that nobody have to come tell me that that happen to one of my children them. Yes, it is painful but you have to make up your mind that it already happen. I just hope that they find who do it.”
And the police are working to do just that. They have detained six persons for questioning.
Sgt. Hilberto Romero, Deputy Commander – CIB
“We’ve been getting assistance from the public and we have several persons detained and we believe that by the end of the day we might have something concrete to arrest and charge someone.
The information we are getting is that it is an old dispute he had with other persons, an old beef as it is called, and that is the reason why he was shot.”
While the police at this time do not know what misunderstanding may have attributed to this latest homicide, Sergeant Hilberto Romero - the acting Officer in Charge of Crimes Investigation Branch in Belize City says they do try to intervene to resolve conflicts.
Sgt. Hilberto Romero,
“As we get information we try to act on the information, we try to visit the various hotspots. We are working along with the youth coordinator and they visit these areas and try to speak to these persons and we try our best to see what we can do to try to put a stop on these killings.”
Jacqueline Godwin reporting for 7NEWS.
And while Romero had high hopes, the word at news time is that the arrest did not come through today, and they now expect to make it tomorrow. As we noted at the top, it is the 22nd murder of the year in the city. In all of 2007, 41 murders were recorded in the city.
