The alleged killer reportedly told police that the victim, 25, was trying to burglarize his car

Yesterday, as the early morning sun dawned upon a quiet city and life stirred as residents awakened from their slumber, the body of a then unidentified individual with three apparent stab wounds was discovered near the riverside at the corner of Partridge and Lavender Streets in the Lake Independence area of the city.

At around 5:23 a.m. on Monday, police visited the scene and observed that the victim – who was clothed in a yellow Polo shirt and a red, black and white jersey pants and had the name “Ezekiel” tattooed on the upper left arm and the initials “EH” on the right leg – had been stabbed three times in the upper right side of the back.

Initial investigations suggested that the male corpse had been lying there from the night before, and was on the verge of decomposition; however, those distinguishing marks were what led the family of the man, later identified as Ezekiel Hernandez Medina, 25, to confirm hours later that it was his body.

Although Medina – originally of Dangriga Town – had been violently stabbed to death, it turns out that his demise did not come as a result of the infamous ongoing gang wars which have marred the city in the recent past; rather, Amandala understands that Medina was allegedly beaten by a group of men before being stabbed multiple times in the back after he allegedly was caught breaking into a parked vehicle belonging to one of the suspects.

Today, we spoke with his sister, Margaret Cullerton, who told us that “Duke”, as Medina was affectionately known, always tried to avoid fights, and was instead a hard worker who had frequented the city in search of work for the past year since his girlfriend in Dangriga got pregnant.

She recounted that she last saw her youngest brother in a happy mood on Thursday of last week when he told her that he needed to come to Belize City to get some things for the baby.

After assuring her that he would soon return home to Dangriga, Medina called his sister last Saturday to reaffirm his intention to go back to the southern town at his earliest convenience, but unfortunately, things took an unfortunate turn, and Cullerton received a dreadful phone call from a friend yesterday which informed her that her brother had died, and that they needed someone to identify his body.

Cullerton explained that Medina would often travel to Belize City either for work, or to collect money from persons who owed him, and this time he told her that he had come to pick up money owed to him from unknown associates in the mechanic business, who had supposedly been giving him a hard time for weeks, so she was shocked to hear that he had been murdered.

Police said that the suspected murder weapon has been retrieved and at least two persons have been detained, one of whom, we understand, has provided police with a caution statement reportedly confessing to the crime, and alluding that he did it because he caught Medina breaking into his vehicle. Police, however, would not elaborate more on the information they had obtained.

One of the officers in charge of the investigation, Sergeant Ismael Westby from CIB Precinct 2, said, “Based on what has developed during the investigation so far, that is one of the allegations that we are looking at. But like everything, we have to actually investigate and confirm that such is true. We do not know the exact motive of him being here. Definitely, what we can say is that in that surrounding where his body was found, we have had certain incidents of vehicle breakage. We cannot actually say if that is the purpose for which he had been here. We have to actually investigate and confirm whether such is true before we can say that actually happened.”

Medina’s family is of the opinion that even if that was the case, the vehicle owner did not have to kill him, because there are other ways of dealing with such situations.

Medina was the father of a 3-month-old son, and according to his sister, their mother had coincidentally died when Medina himself was only 3 months old.