33-year-old Captain Damacio Coc had been working his way up the ranks of the Belize Defense Force for well over a decade. But on Sunday morning, Captain Coc took his own life while inside a cell in the Tango 10 building at the Belize Central Prison.
Coc was remanded a month ago after he breached a protection order that was taken out against him by his wife. He was awaiting a bail hearing but yesterday, around 10 in the morning, he took his own life in his cell - where he was unaccompanied.
Today, we spoke with the CEO of the Kolbe Foundation, Virgilio Murillo, who told us that Captain Coc showed no signs of wanting to harm himself.
Virgillo Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation
"One of the things with prison is safe custody and it was during one of those routine checks that the prison officer saw that the prisoner had a white sheet hiding the interior of his cell from the view of the prison officers who would be patrolling and that got his curiosity, so he managed to pull it aside and when he did so, that is when he saw prisoner hanging in his cell at the back."
Reporter
"And he was saying that when they had checked on his earlier, he seems fine."
Virgillo Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation
"As a matter of fact, we are looking at the records right now and we were also reviewing the camera, because we have camera for that particular area and we saw where at about 8:20 thereabout the guard had check on him and I know prior to that they had done a check on his at around 7 o' clock there about too. But there were no indication to show that he was depressed or contemplating any bad thing for himself."
Reporter
"And he was in a cell by himself?"
Virgillo Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation
"Absolutely, he was in a cell by himself. Like I said we cannot afford to compromise the security of the prison, so for those reasons I cannot go into the details. All I can tell you is that when prisoners come to the prison, they are classified using our classification system and that is when their placement is determined and where he was housed at tango 10 was according to the classification committee - the most appropriate place for him to have been."
Reporter
"You can talk about his demeanour while he was here?"
Virgillo Murillo, CEO, Kolbe Foundation
"Well, to be very honest I think he had a fairly good demeanour. When prisoners don't behave properly or are displaying any kind of depression or isolation, those kinds of thing - we are quick to notice, because the guards that are interacting with them would typically make a report and say hey you know I notice that guy just wants to be by himself or I notice that guy is arrogant or disrespectful or things like that. But I wasn't hearing any complaints about this particular prisoner, so I would take it to mean that he was of pleasant demeanour. I think its a surprise to just about everybody and based on the report I have received from my guard who had check on him around 8:30 thereabout and the interaction where the guard specifically ask him if he was okay and he said yes, I am okay, I'm good. There was really no telling. So this one definitely caught us off guard. We would not have expected it from him, especially having the rank of a captain and obviously had a good career in front of him."
And the police press officer, ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, chose not to elaborate on the matter since, as he explained, these types of incidents are not usually discussed in the media. However, he did tell us that investigators are treating it as a suicide.
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood
"I know that it's a BDF that died, but we don't discuss suicides."
Reporter
"But has it been classified as a suicide or a death investigation?"
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood
"From the moment you ask me about a suicide at the central prison, that's definitely, because I sent it out as suicide. It was classified as a suicide."
"We will know which direction after a post-mortem has been conducted. Only a post-mortem would rule otherwise."
Reporter
"The family seem to think that it might have been foul play."
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood
'Whenever you lose a loved one, it is very hard for you to accept and especially when it comes to suicide, it's even harder and I believe that is the reason that we took out suicide from our interviews and reporting, because its already hard on the family to believe and we don't want to add to their agony."
The BDF does routine counseling visits with the soldiers at the prison, and the last session, at which Captain Coc had presumably attended, was about two weeks ago. The BDF declined comment today - saying their priority right now is dealing with his family and his funeral.
Coc had one toddler-aged daughter and a stepson.
