And another murder victim was found yesterday morning, off the Water Hole Road a few miles outside of Punta Gorda Town. It's a strange case, since police were initially responding to reports of arson in the area. But, only a hundred yards away from a burnt up SUV, they found the body of 37-year-old Darwin Chavarria.
Chavarria was reported missing by his family on Wednesday night, after his common-law wife returned home around 4 in the evening and noticed that the back door was damaged and the house ransacked. She waited a while to see if Chavarria would come home, and grew worried when he didn't.
Today we spoke with Chavarria's aunt via telephone, and she said that Chavarria did not trouble anyone, but had recently come into a large sum of money after he sold a boat. The family believes he was being monitored closely, and that the motive may have been robbery.
Lavern Williams, Aunt of Deceased
"We want know what is the problem because he's not a person that, you know, he's not someone who gets in problem, he's not a fighting or trouble person, he's a smooth person, so that that's what we want to know, what is it? All of us are asking, what went on? We don't know, we were praying at least if he was found, that he was found alive, we don't mind if he was beaten or tied up, just that he's alive."
"I hear that when they checked, the door was kicked down, and the house was ransacked. The telephone was there on the ground, everything was there, slippers, it look like when they took him, they took him barefoot."
"Nobody was there because the common-law have a laundry place that she goes to work everyday. So she leaves home every time like 7:30 in the morning, she doesn't reach home until 5:30, minutes to 6. So most of the time it's only him with his brother-in-law at home but that morning it looks like the brother-in-law went out to do errands. That's what is puzzling because anytime you go there, you always find him and the brother-in-law always is there but the young man probably left. So the person was probably dodging to see when the boy left."
The vehicle found belongs to one of Chavarria's friends. Chavarria leaves behind one 12-year-old daughter.
When we asked police about this incident today, they refrained from giving details saying the story was constantly changing.
