Tonight Orange Walk is reeling from the news that a young mother was brutally stabbed to death and left for dead in a canefield.
23 year old Yanira Novelo, from San Jose village was found dead - while her 4 year old son received a stab wound to the midsection. He's now a motherless child recovering in the hospital, but the mystery of his mother's death is perplexing the north tonight.
Here's more from the crime scene:...
Jules Vasquez reporting
This is the canefield along the San Lorenzo Road in Orange Walk where 26 year old Yanira Novelo's body was found today.
The mother of two was dumped here, reportedly after she and her four year old son - were abducted when they left a Western Union office yesterday evening.
At some point the child got away - and, a short time later, he was found walking along the San Lorenzo road with a stab wound to his stomach.
VOICE OF: RELATIVE
"They just received a call that they found their grandchild and from there we move out, we didnt stay to know more or less. My husband and I went out with one of my nephews, we went to see what was happening. We went to the hospital to find the child to see what was going on. It was a minor wound by the right had side close to the abdomen."
He was rushed to the hospital, but where was his mother? The family filed a desperate missing person's report and this is where her body was found late this morning -in a young canefield that's not being harvested until next year.
Waves of police officers came to the scene for the outlandish murder. They took her body away - leaving her family with so many questions and so much pain. A relative spoke to us off camera:
VOICE OF: RELATIVE
"We are all hurt. We couldn't imagine what was going on. We are hoping we get justice, because she didn't deserve to die. She is leaving 2 children behind and this didn't deserve to happen to her and we really want justice for her death, that whoever killed her, that they what they did to her, whatever they did to her I have one saying if we the people doesn't make them pay, but someone up there saw everything and he will make them pay sooner or later."
Filling in a few details, a driver picked up the child yesterday evening on a deserted road about 5 miles away from San Lorenzo housing site - which is outside of Orange Walk Town.
He told the man who picked him up that his mother is being held hostage by some men on a farm located on the said road where he managed to escape.
Police started searching in the area and this morning at 11:05, a search party found her body lying facedown in a canefield about 4 miles down the San Lorenzo road. She had been stabbed multiple times to the chest.
Novelo was the mother of a two year old girl and a four year old boy. Police have no one detained at this time. The four year old - who was abducted along with his mother but escaped - turned four yesterday.
