A high school student is missing tonight and all indications are that the teenager drowned in the Belize Old River. Yesterday morning 16 year old Leroy Sandoval went swimming with friends in the St. James Boom area which is a suburb of Sandhill when he disappeared. Police have been searching since yesterday afternoon but up until this afternoon they still had not recovered his body. 7NEWS was in St. James Boom area today and Keith Swift has the story.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This vast body of water is the Belize Old River. It may look peaceful but it is in this water that 16-year-old Leroy Sandoval was last seen yesterday morning. Now more than 24 hours later police continue searching for him and they believe the teen may have drowned.
Since yesterday police search teams have been scouring the river for any trace of Sandoval. Sergeant Hilberto Romero who is a trained diver spent two hours
searching and came up empty handed.
Sgt. Hilberto Romero,
"We were just following the current. The current as you can see goes this way and we believe the current may have dragged the body around so I went around and around and came to the center however I was not successful in finding the person."
Leroy was in this area known as St. James' Boom on a trip with friends. The group of 25 actually made the 17-mile journey from Belize City to fish but his friends say once there, some of the boys couldn't resist the temptation to jump in. His close friend and classmate at St. Michael's College 18-year-old Charles Garoy was one of the last to see Leroy alive. He is now haunted by the memory of Leroy's last words to him.
Charles Garoy, Friend
"The last thing he said was 'I could swim a lil bit.' The water looked nice, it was very tempting, because you can see for yourself when you went up there that it was good. I didn't see when he went into the water. I didn't even see when he took off his clothes first of all. He just went into the water and I saw he was having a good time and he started to swim around so I stopped looking after him because it looked like he could handle himself."
Keith Swift,
When did you realize something had happened to him?
Charles Garoy,
"Well I realize that he was missing when my stepbrother called out, my brother and my name, and asking for Leroy. He asked where my friend was and I told him I didn't know where he was. I started to look around and same time I got worried. We started to look around and my brother told me to let's go look for him around the van to see if he was around there. We started to look around and we didn't see no sign of him. My step-granny came and said his (Leroy's) clothes are down there and then the owner said he probably drowned because he couldn't go out without his clothes."
And those who know the river like Brian Davis and Henry Flowers, who were born and raised along the banks of the Belize Old River say its very likely that the teen, who was not an experienced swimmer, underestimated its depth and its danger.
Henry Flowers, Area Resident
"They shouldn't have come in the water like that and then they don't know this river. You see you have to know the river because the side of it shallow but after when you go a little bit it is a deep you will meet and this river has about 45 feet right now, that is the depth it has right now out in the middle."
Brian Davis, Area Resident
"For anyone who don't know this river it is not safe. You have to live out here to know this river because this river is very dangerous. You have a lot of alligator in this river. Night after night those alligators catch my aunty sheep and all those alligators do is bust their throat. But I don't think an alligator made the little boy drowned. They have to know this river because this river is very deep, deep bad. Out there has about 50 add to 40 add feet of water. When you just left from out here it has maybe about 20 feet and if you don't know the river you will drown, definitely if you can't swim."
And while police continue to search and are still calling this an apparent drowning, back in the city his mother Geraldine Escarpeta accepts that her son has drowned and now waits for police to recover the body.
Geraldine Escarpeta, Leroy's Mother
"I want the body so that I can identify my son, lay him to rest and move on because one thing I can say, my son has gone to heaven. He has never done anything wrong. He is always at home, he plays with the kids down there, and those are his friends - those small children down there. He doesn't go to any school parties, no school function, nothing. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke; nothing my son does."
A mother looking for closure while police divers look for the body of her son which will bring her that.
Late reports to our newsroom from residents in the area are that Leroy's body was seen floating in the area just a few minutes ago. These reports are unconfirmed and we are told police have left the area and are yet to claim the body. Leroy Sandoval was in second form at St. Michael's College.
