19 year old Myrtle Gill and 29 Earl Young Crawford were discovered missing from Brown’s Caye last week Tuesday. On Saturday, the worst fears of the young woman’s family were confirmed when she was found dead on the eastern side of Heusner’s Caye which is 14 miles from Belize City. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition and due to this chief pathologist Dr. Mario Estradabran says it is difficult to determine how the victim was killed. But as he told the press today, there are many other compelling clues about her death.
Dr. Mario Estradabran, Chief Pathologist
“It makes it difficult to join all the pieces together and determine how she was skilled because if there is no cause of death then there is no sequence in relation to forensic investigation to arrive to this final conclusion which is the final diagnosis of death as well as the death and time of her death.
It will affect the police a lot because as you all know the police rely a lot on the medical examiner’s findings but if they don’t have any other clue I guess the police needs to investigate more the case and then at the end of the day they will be the ones through their investigations that will find out more details about this incident.”
But what the examination has determined is that Gill fought for her life. There
were between five to ten injuries classified as defensive wounds to the upper body.
Dr. Mario Estradabran,
“This is one of the reasons the deceased had self-defense wounds on the hand.”
Dr. Estradabran says while the weapon used was a sharp object like a knife it has not yet been determined if the bloody twelve inch knife police removed from the scene was the weapon used. But Gill was not stabbed to death.
Dr. Mario Estradabran,
“The stab wounds did not penetrate any cavity, did not affect any vital organ, did not affect any important vessel. In my opinion those defense wounds she got on the upper extremities, at the time when the assailant inflicted those injuries, she still had enough time to run or to move away from the area where she was.”
Estradabran says the examination also revealed that Myrtle Gill was not strangled.
And while the body of nineteen year old Myrtle Octavia Gill has since been laid to rest what remains unsolved is who killed her? Another question that remains unanswered is where is the boyfriend? One possible and very disturbing report is that Earl Young Crawford is very much alive but on the run after killing his girlfriend.
Clemente Palacio, Police Press Officer
“Police have an open mind in terms of investigating this matter. There has been in the public domain talk about many possible scenarios. Therefore is it is an open case and the police are still looking for the public’s cooperation in finding the other person that is missing.”
Gill’s family declined an interview but did tell 7NEWS they believe Crawford is responsible for her death.
Clemente Palacio,
“We aren’t going to speculate, we’re just going to ask the public for their help. No one knows if he is alive. Because of the public speculation, this gives another angle to this whole scenario because at first I think police thought that they were looking for two bodies, we’ve found one, we haven’t found another and there have been reported sightings of this individual and so we treat it as an open case.”
Dr. Estradabran says he believes Myrtle Octavia Gill was killed on July fifth, the day she arrived on Brown’s Caye. The search continues for Earl Young Crawford, who according to some theories, may have headed south.
