And while police have been quick to make arrests and are hoping to get all four persons involved in a criminal conspiracy, a crime of this nature gives all law abiding citizens pause. That's because while William Smith was crafting his retiree's dream of building a resort in Cayo - criminals were watching him and plotting to take his money, and his life.
We asked the Minister today about the feeling, the citizen's intuition that increasingly we are not safe:
Jules Vasquez
"The murder statistics in particular may be having a positive trend, but minister, people do not feel safe. The sense of citizen insecurity is no different than it was under the UDP. Critics would say its worsen, I won't go that far. But I would say that it remains on the same trajectory it was that people do not feel safe in their homes, they feel prone to random attack and obviously, Sunday's murder in San Ignacio only underscores that."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Seeing videos on the daily, of crime situations. Ten, fifteen years ago you never actually saw crimes that were being committed and so if a home invasion or a murder happened or a robbery happen, you did not put yourself into the shoes of the individuals that are actually going through that. And so, I think that in terms of the media, in terms of social media, and us being in tuned with it now, what is happening, I think that definitely heightens the sense of what is taking place because, as you rightly said, the numbers are down but we don't necessarily feel safe and that has a lot to do with the fact that we are seeing it and so you live it now. And that, to me, is one of the key differences in terms of twenty years ago, you would never have seen murders happening right before your very eyes and in such seriously heinous fashion, and so I think that is the main difference that has taken place. But, in the first quarter, again, if you look at the statistics, it is down compared to last year which is a record year. So the trends have been going down."
"While the turf war and the retaliation may be down, we are seeing now a lot of crimes of opportunity. For instance, the home invasion. That is definitely a very tragic and devastating situation for the Smith family to have to go through and so we in the department have to do our very best to try to be able to predict those things and stop them from happening. Yes, that is the job of the police department, but when you look at the response that took place, the police were very quick in their response. They were able to capture 2 of the guys who were actually at the scene and 2 others who have been implicated and I think thanks to technology we were able to piece together the puzzle a lot better in terms of the investigation."
Jules Vasquez
"I hear you, but I have to reject what you are... you are saying we feel unsafe, because we are victims of a social media mirage. No sir, its real."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I said that heightens it. I'm not saying that why you feel unsafe."
Jules Vasquez
"People actually feel unsafe for good reasons."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Ten, fifteen years ago you felt unsafe, but you feel it more now - I'm saying it is heightened now, because you are actually putting yourself in the situation."
