And the first murder of the weekend likely occurred on Thursday in Camalote. We say likely because the family of 58-year-old Belhem Guzman isn't exactly sure when he went missing, but his brother told us that he went to deliver food on Thursday night and noticed Guzman wasn't at home.
Friday, they noticed the same. Ultimately, they launched a search party and on Sunday they found his decomposed body.
It's a callous killing of an elderly man who lived a tumultuous life, but whom his family said has never hurt anyone before. While they don't know who the murderer could be, they suspect he was targeted by the village youths.
Courtney Menzies went west today and spoke to his family. Here is that story.
The family of 58-year-old Belhem Guzman was at the cemetery today in Camalote building his grave after the senior citizen was found murdered.
They noticed that something was wrong from last Friday when they realized that Guzman was missing. Two days later, they found his decomposed body. His brother said he would have never expected Guzman to be killed in such a cruel manner.
Telford Guzman, Brother of Deceased
"We got out the Sunday morning and some of us went all the way to Armenia because he has a daughter that lives down the road there and some people said they saw the man walking there, some people said this, some people said that, so we really couldn't understand what happened so we decided to go Belmopan way, the boys while some of the rest of the family stayed in Camalote and about after 12 my sister called me and said they found the man."
"The man was tied up, in a blanket, he doesn't take his bedding to sleep anywhere. That's not his bedding, so from the time he was out in that part of land we already knew that he was murdered. Then the situation he was in. I didn't get a full look because the blanket was still over him, but what I understand is that he was tied up. They said his neck was cut."
"I believe that it's somebody close by and somebody in the village did it."
And while Guzman's family doesn't know why he was targeted, they said he walked along the road often and his body was discovered in an empty lot along his normal route. His brother also told us that the younger villagers harassed him.
Telford Guzman, Brother of Deceased
"He walks within that space everyday because he has a friend down that road that's about a mile. This happened like in between. And everyday, so the first person when we couldn't find him, is call his friend, and the man's sister always told him not to encourage him, to give him nothing because that encourages him to walk. He's somebody who takes his little drink that's part of his thing and make noise. Some of the younger people interfere with him and he get molested but he wasn't any kind of trouble man that really could take up a war and defend himself."
"In the village right here, they provoke him by calling him a nickname and when they would call him the nickname, he has an action right but his action is just because he has that little liquor in him. He's gotten so much damage in his life, hundreds of damage, and he has never tried to respond to any of them. I mean, people have done him some crazy things already and all he does is get up and tries to forgive the situation. He didn't try to channel it, he didn't try to make noise off of it, so we know that he wasn't a person of violence."
And now, the man who once cut off the tip of his finger to save his own life after being bitten by a snake will be buried later this week. His brother said the manner in which he was killed was more shocked than his actual death - especially since he spent so long living without any safety precautions.
Telford Guzman, Brother of Deceased
"He lived in a house with no doors or windows, and I always said God is with this guy because anybody could go there and do him anything, a snake, whatever, he just lived like that, like in his own world and we didn't expect what happened."
"We expected because of his behavior, something would have knocked him down or maybe in his drunkenness he would stray. I even, at the time I said, because of the rain in the night, maybe he got drunk and stumbled and the water took him somewhere, I don't know, that was what was in my understanding, I didn't think he would get harmed by anybody, I even said maybe if somebody knocked him down a vehicle, they would try to move him but when we saw that situation we said that's not knock down."
And now police are looking for the killer who targeted an elderly man.
Guzman had three kids. Police have no suspects so far.
