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Boxing Day murder in Hopkins

FeaturesBoxing Day murder in Hopkins

As he was taking his last breaths, Luke Nunez, Jr. told his aunt: “Auntie, I love you. You take care of my mom because I’m getting weak and I’ll die.”

A squabble turned deadly last night in Hopkins Village when 18-year-old Luke Nunez, Jr. was reportedly killed by Wilfred Garcia, 48, a Belizean driver of Hopkins Village.

According to reports, Nunez, a laborer of Hopkins Village, got into a misunderstanding with Garcia in the north side of the village. That misunderstanding led to a fight, during which Nunez sustained cut wounds to the right side of the chest, center of the head, and the upper left side of the chest. Nunez succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at the Southern Regional Hospital.

According to Elta Augustine, it was frustration that led Garcia to kill her nephew.

“He’s a drunk, always drinking and he doesn’t work,” she said. “It was frustration that got into him.”

She said that Garcia asked Nunez to help move a car that was stuck. Nunez didn’t want to continue to help Garcia push the car, so Garcia told him: “I will kill you.”

Augustine said that when she was informed of what had happened to her nephew, she immediately went over to the village health center where she found doctors trying to stabilize Nunez.

“I was insisting for the ambulance to hurry come because we were there 30 to 45 minutes and the ambulance did not come, so I was trying my best to make us take him our self and the doctor said we cannot move him because he needed oxygen,” she said.

Augustine said that Nunez was alive while being transported to the hospital, but did not seem to have been fully aware of everything.

“Whatever I asked him he didn’t answer to the point so I said he must be losing of lot of blood,” she said. “He told me ‘Auntie, I love you. You take care of my mom because I’m getting weak and I’ll die.’”

Augustine said that she tried to comfort her nephew and keep him awake.

“I tried to maintain an open air way for him,” she said. “And by the time we reached and they rolled him out the back of the ambulance, that’s when his eyes rolled over.”

The incident was said to have taken place near the home of a close friend to the family and not too far away from Nunez’s grandfather’s house. Augustine said that Nunez lived closely with family members.

“Junior is a person who doesn’t let go of his family,” she said. “He’s with his father; he’s at me, all of the family’s houses. He makes sure everybody is alright.”

She said that Nunez was a respectful person and did not have many friends.

“My dad was always there for him, making sure he didn’t keep bad friends,” Augustine said. “He only had one friend. He was in the church. He was an acolyte so he knew he had to humble himself.”

Augustine said that Garcia is known for bothering people.

“Two weeks ago a young man came to my yard crying because the man [Garcia] was going to attack him and he wanted nothing to do with him,” she said. “And that’s how I know him as someone like that; he’s a very disrespectful person.”

Nunez is the youngest of three children for his mother and was her only son.

Dangriga police told Amandala that details surrounding the incident are confidential at this time. Garcia has been detained pending further instructions from the Department of Public Prosecution.

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