59-year-old cabbie Paul Panton started his day as he normally would - by heading out to the Cinderella Plaza Taxi Stand. He was sitting in his Toyota 4Runner early this morning before he got called away to a job - but that job ended in his execution.
Now his family is questioning who would want a little known taxi man dead - especially one who spent most of his life in the States before he was deported. The police are pursuing solid leads and believe it had something to do with some family business that turned sour.
It's unlike the usual city murders that are mostly gang related, but no matter the motive, the fact is that a family is now left to mourn their loved one.
Courtney Menzies went to the scene looking for answers and has this story.
A daylight murder has shocked the family of taxi man, 59-year-old Paul Panton. Panton was parked here, at the Cinderella Plaza, at 6am but somehow ended up with a bullet in his head minutes later all the way on Heart Street, in the St Martin's area.
A resident of Heart Street told us that he was sleeping when Panton's vehicle crashed into his fence after he had been shot.
Edwin Logan, Resident of Heart Street
"I was in my bed, my two fan on, so I just pick up my phone and in between that time I heard the dirt truck and then I heard a bang but I thought it was the dirt truck, I didn't know it was a bullet."
"My daughter came and knocked on the door upstairs, and I got up and I said wait right now, and when I looked outside, police was there, everybody was already there. When I look, all the police lined up there and the vehicle was there, ram into my fence and I looked and I saw the man dead in there. But I didn't see who shot him, but they ran into my fence."
"Then after that, ambulance came like 45 minutes after, they took the body out and took him. The man dead, blood is all over on the ground in front of my house."
"It's nothing strange to hear gun shot but it's not normally you meet man like this dead on the street. This is the first time this happen, and right in front of my door, for 32 years I live here, something like this has never happened here before."
And Panton was murdered a long way from his home at the corner of Landivar and 2nd Streets, where he'd been living alone ever since he got sent back to Belize about three weeks ago. He'd spent the last three decades in the US, where he had a wife and kids.
And according to his wife, he'd been deported four years ago and had been trying to get back to them by seeking asylum since he'd told his wife he was being threatened.
Judith Young, Wife of Deceased
"We have spoken about it, he had received some threats, I wouldn't know why because he drives his taxi, he tries to live an honest life. Try to provide for himself so we wouldn't have to provide for him as a man. So I wouldn't know and he tried to explain to me about how difficult and how hard the country has been lately with all the murders and he tried to explain that to me, he had sent me a picture recently of another person that was murdered so my thing to him was just stay away from that area, if you don't have to go out, don't put anyone in your taxi cab that you're not familiar with and that would help."
"My kids are devastated, they're so devastated because my 14 year old hadn't seen his father for four years since he was deported and we've been trying to get paperwork so he could get his passport. The papers that I have sent to Belize for him to sign, the US has denied them, said they weren't sufficient so my 14 year old, when their dad left, he was ten, has not seen his father for four years. So they're totally devastated."
"Here, he worked as a cook in a care facility for elderly people and he always tells me that the elderly people thinks he's very sweet and I said, oh they don't know you at home [laughs]. But he's a very caring father, he takes care of his kids, we have six children together, when I'm work, he would pick them up, come home, he would cook. When I get here, there would be food for me because he's a cook. So he was pretty quiet, I wouldn't think he would have not one enemy. Why? My question is why?"
And that's what the police are trying to find out. This morning, cops were on the scene towing Panton's Toyota 4Runner that he used as his work vehicle.
This afternoon, communications officer, ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, called this murder an execution and explained that it might have stemmed from some business gone wrong.
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Communications Officer
"He received a phone call and proceeded to where he was found by police with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head which would warrant us in saying it's an execution style murder. The content of that car, we do not know. Who made the call at this time, we're not certain, we are trying to locate his cellphone. We are working with our local telephone companies in trying to get that information and hopefully when we do, that would be able to clear up some of the questions that we have at this time."
"It would want to appear that that person may have boarded the vehicle in a pretentious state of wanting a cab and then that person did their execution. We have received several tips so far and we are even following up some information that he may have been involved in some form of business with a family that is very upset right now. I don't know if their business went sideward but their information would want to suggest that this was as a result of some form of business that went bad between him and those other parties."
But regardless of the motive, Panton's wife tearfully expressed that after the killing of her husband, Young says she feels she cannot return to the country she was born in.
Judith Young, Wife of Deceased
"Belize is paradise to us, when we go on vacation I would say vacation in our own country, it's like paradise to us so everybody wants to go home. So going home for him was exciting, he wanted to go, some of my children have visited and they really love Belize but it's like Belize is becoming a hellhole."
"I would want to move home, I would want to take my children, that's my home, that's my country, and it feels like I can't go."
Panton's cellphone was also stolen during the incident. As you heard, he had six children, the youngest being in his teens.
We note that - in an unrelated coincidence -like Wednesday's murder victim - Jordan Bradley - Panton was a resident of King's Park - and the two lived nearby.
