And while the families of those two victims grieve in the west, another family in Belize City is also mourning after their loved one was found dead in the cemetery.
35-year-old Russell Bernardez's body was dumped between the graves at Lord Ridge after being shot in the head. He was initially processed as a John Doe, but his family's worst nightmare became reality when he was identified.
Courtney Menzies spoke with his sister today, who told us that a strange phone call this morning made it seem like maybe Bernardez knew he was in mortal danger. Here is that story.
Around 6:20 this morning someone passing by the Lord Ridge Cemetery noticed a man's body lying amidst the graves.
Up to this morning, the police still had no idea who he was, just that he was fatally shot to the head:
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Police Press Officer
"Police went in there, they processed the scene, where they found the motionless body of a dark complexion male person not identified to us as yet. This person was dressed in a white T-shirt and a khaki cargo short pants and was barefoot. The body had apparent gunshot injuries to it, we know that the body was transport to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital sometime around 8:20 this morning, where it now awaits a postmortem."
But by that time, the family of 35-year-old Russell Bernardez had already received that dreaded phone call, letting them know that he was lying in the morgue.
And his sister told us that while she hadn't seen her brother since Monday, he had called their mother only 20 minutes before his body was found, with only one message for her:
Voice of: Gerrydean Stewart, Sister of the Deceased
"My ma talked to him 6:00 this morning, 6:00 this morning my mom spoke to him and he told my mom, ma, I love you. That's all he told my mom."
Reporter
"But he never confided that maybe he was in some type of trouble..."
Voice of: Gerrydean Stewart, Sister of the Deceased
"Nothing like that, he just said, ma, I love you. That's it. And even if he was in any kind of trouble, he wouldn't say it, because he doesn't want anything to come to his family or anything, so he won't say anything."
And while Stewart says Bernardez often annoyed her, as little brothers do, he didn't deserve to be killed.
Voice of: Gerrydean Stewart, Sister of the Deceased
"He's very tantalizing, he would push you, provoke you to anger, he would want you to really beat him up, because when he tantalize you, he tantalizing. Aside from that, everybody has their past because he is no saint, I wouldn't say he's this and that, but he's not a saint but at the end of the day, he's no trouble person who would go out of his way to bring you no harm of trouble, that is the way I know my brother. People might say she's telling a lie or whatever, that's their issue. My thing is, I know him how I know him, very loving, provoking, tantalizing, get to an extent where I would tell him, bwai, get out of my house and don't come back, because he's provoking."
"My brother works, he's a working person, he doesn't have time to hang out. He would come to hail me, because his kids come over to hail me every night, so he comes here to hang out with his kids, and from there he goes home."
And while families of murder victims begin their grieving with feelings of denial, Stewart says there's only one emotion she has: anger.
Voice of: Gerrydean Stewart, Sister of the Deceased
"The kinda feeling I have, I cannot describe it. And I'm not waiting for nobody, I'm not waiting for the police to whatever, whatever they find they will find, whatever they don't find, all the same. But my anger, miss, I can't describe it, I have a very deep anger, something I can't even describe."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you think he was chanced?"
Voice of: Gerrydean Stewart, Sister of the Deceased
"I think they chance him out of his life because the way how they describe how he looked, it's like somebody who was actually trying to fight for his life. We haven't seen him, but they say he's scraped up and all kinda thing, so I don't know, I can't say much cause I haven't seen him. But the anger that I have it's like, why? Why my little brother? He's just trying to love his life, he's just trying to take care of his two kids, trying to get back on his foot, because of a while he wasn't working. I just can't… miss, my anger is way beyond anything, anything imagine, honestly."
Bernardez had two children, a boy and a girl.
According to his sister, Bernardez was a construction worker.
