Tonight, the imprint of grief and incomprehension rests heavily over the Orange Walk District after the early morning death of 17 year old Shadia Magana, the third burn victim to die from Monday morning's arson-murder in San Felipe Village.
As we told you on Monday, Angelita Magana and her son were murdered when her ex common law husband, Francis Godoy, poured gasoline on her and 6 year old Tishan Godoy and then lit them on fire. He also set her daughter, Shadia Magana on fire as before the flames got hold of him.
While Magana and little Tishan died instantly, Shadia held on until this morning, when she, along with the culprit Godoy passed away.
This prompted her school, Muffles Junior College, to host a memorial in her honor. Courtney Menzies has this story.
The death count is now four for the worst arson/murder in memory. Shadia Magana and Francisco Godoy both died early this morning at the KHMH. They had burns to over 90% of their body.
It's the loss of an innocent 17 year old sixth form student and simultaneously the loss of the perpetrator of one of the most heinous acts of domestic violence ever witnessed.
Today at Muffles Junior College - where a memorial for Shadia was being held - the dean explained that it's the first time they've had to bury a student. She added that though Shadia was a new student, she already stood out.
Adrian Leiva, Dean, Muffles Junior College
"It's unprecedented, it comes as a shocker especially considering the manner in which she passed away. Exactly one week ago in this very spot where we're having the memorial, we had a general assembly, we had guest speakers to speak to us on nutrition and the mistress of ceremony for us was Shadia. Shadia was in her limelight here. Who could have thought that exactly one week later at this very hour, we would be holding a memorial."
"Shadia was vibrant. She was majoring in, she was pursuing her Associates degree in Management with a concentration in Information and Communications Technology. Academically, she was doing really well, we just distributed mid semester reports and Shadia was on the list of students passing. Shadia immersed herself immediately, she's a first year student, she just started Muffles in August, and she was already very involved. Like I said, she was the mistress of ceremony for the activity that her house, Gongora House, organized last Wednesday. She was on the volleyball team, she was already a visible individual in the school community."
And while it's a terrible loss both for Muffles Junior College and St Michael's RC - where Angelita Megan was a warden and Tristan Godoy was an infant 2 student - it's also a crime with no surviving culprits. That is, unless one can blame the system that could not protect Magana from an ex who relentlessly hunted her. According to the police, there was a small window where Godoy had a bit of freedom, and he immediately went looking for her.
Voice of: Miguel Novelo, Common Law Husband of Deceased
"He had a problem, he had a court case for rape with her that hasn't completed. and he had another one that just came out last week, where he had a restriction, that's what happened."
"She was afraid because he had already entered about 2 days prior, he had already entered her home from the roof. He covered her mouth and asked her if she would get back together with him but she said she couldn't because she saw it was impossible to have a life with him. So he asked her if she had anything with someone, if she was going to live with someone else and she said yes. He said he will kill both of her kids."
ASP Stacy Smith, Staff Officer
"In this scenario, I think what would have been the ideal situation at hand was for a revocation of his High Court bail. I think the only reason why there may have been a gap that allowed him to be on the street, and as you would see, it's a very narrow window is because at the time that he went to court on Thursday, he was remanded from April up until that recent time. So I don't believe that steps would have been made to have his High Court bail revoked, given that he was already remanded because of another incident. So it just so happened, and unfortunately so that the situation at hand created a window for him and he took advantage of it."
A wake will be held tonight for the family.
Shadia had recently graduated from Belize High School of Agriculture.
