Last week, the country was stunned by a selfie taken by a murder suspect with his two victims. Since then, 39-year-old Miguelito Encalada has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder for the deaths of his girlfriend, 50-year-old Desiree Gonzalez, and his brother, 25-year-old George Rochester.
And this morning around 10:00, Encalada was taken to Belize City Magistrate's court to be arraigned on this double murder charge. Encalada, who was unrepresented wore a pair of slippers and socks as he was taken into Court #6 at around 10:17 a.m.
He was unrepresented in court as he was read the charges against him. No plea was taken due to the nature of the offense and as is standard for all murder cases, bail was denied. He was remanded to prison until June 30.
Before leaving the court, Encalda asked the Senior Magistrate if he could please see his mother before going up to prison.
Encalada was found by cops at his home around midday last Thursday, drinking a beer. He pointed police to his licensed firearm, which was resting on a chair. Reports say he had gotten the license only a few months ago, after many rejections.
He admitted to killing the victims, reportedly saying that he caught his girlfriend having an affair.
Since then, Gonzalez's family has rejected this story, explaining that Encalada and Gonzalez were always together, and that the accused had gone to his brother's house at 3 that morning to take him to the crime scene. The family also said that rigor mortis had already set in, so they believe that the murder had to have happened hours before Encalada was found.
According to the postmortem exams, Rochester was shot to the head, and Gonzalez was shot to the face.
