72 year old Belizean American retiree William Smith was murdered on Easter Sunday in San Ignacio and last night police charged two men for his murder, and other offenses.
They formally arrested and charged 59 year old Ernest Thompson a.k.a Florencio Talbert of Santa Cruz area, Santa Elena Town jointly along with 26 year old Isiah Azueta, of Kontiki Extension, San Ignacio Town for (1) count of Murder, (1) count of Aggravated Burglary, (1) count of Dangerous Harm, and (2) counts of Robbery each.
Ernest Thompson was additionally charged with (1) count of Attempted Murder, (1) count Kept firearm without a gun license, (1) count Kept ammunition without a gun license and (1) count of Handling stolen goods. Isiah Azueta was additionally charged with (1) count of Kept Firearm without a gun license and (1) count of Kept ammunition without a gun license.
It' a lot of charges - and today the commissioner said that these are only two players in a larger criminal conspiracy:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"The investigation led to the arrest of Ernest Thompson "Aka Seconds" and another fellow Azueta. As I said before, in respect to those two individuals, those were the ones that our evidence indicated had gone to the home of Mr Smith and perpetrated the aggravated burglary which eventually led to murder. Police good work again, led to these persons being detained and arrested and charged. We are still trying as best as we can to gather more evidence as it relates to those persons who may be the conspirators. There are other persons who play very important roles leading up to that particular incident and we have identified who those persons are. But, right now we are working on the evidence and hopefully by the end of this week we should be able to lay charges against the other persons, jointly with the other two for conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary."
"It was a conspiracy by a number of persons and then it was executed by those 2 individuals who went to the home. The injuries are not life-threatening. He does have a pellet lodge somewhere in one of his arms and he is to see a bone specialist. I directed yesterday that we facilitate him to be able to see Dr Smith. We have seen many instances where our officers are acting extremely brave responding to very violent tyes of crime, putting their lives at risk and in some cases, they are seriously injured, that when these things occur, as a department, we must do our best to see that these officers get the best medical treatment that they can receive. It cannot be that we must leave them to fend for themselves after having been out there putting their lives at risk for this country and I said to them that if it is that we must find the money to get him the treatment that he rightly deserves, then we must do so."
