There were three separate stabbing incidents in Belize City over the weekend, but only one was fatal. Police said that on Saturday night, sometime around 2:30 in the wee hours of the morning, they were called to an area near West Canal where they found Albert Castillo, 36, a chef at Belize Sugar Industry (BSI), suffering from what appeared to be two stab wounds to the neck.
Albert was transported to Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH). He was admitted to ward in a critical condition, but succumbed to his injuries sometime around 5:00 a.m. while undergoing treatment, said a police report.
Today Amandala spoke with Albert “Cashew” Castillo’s family members and his common-law wife of five years, Ericka Blanco, a resident of Boots Crescent. Albert, reports say, used to live “off and on” with her.
Ellia Castillo, Albert’s mother, said that she was in Punta Gorda, where she lives, when she got two disturbing calls from her eldest son, Edmond Castillo. The first one, which came shortly after 8:00 yesterday morning, informed her that he had bad news to deliver to her. It was “unconfirmed,” said Edmond, but he would confirm the news before calling back.
The second call came about an hour later, saying that the bad news had been confirmed and that Albert had been stabbed to death. He was at the morgue, Edmund told her.
Ellia said that she met a woman who is a music teacher at one of the prominent high schools in the city, who told her that Albert was with her at the time of the incident.
The woman said that she left Albert in a car parked almost in front of her home and had gone to buy at a nearby shop. When she returned, she found Albert suffering from a number of stab wounds. She said that, contrary to the police report, it was she who rushed him to the KHMH. There, she questioned him about who had stabbed him, but his reply was that he did not know.
She was there with him when he began complaining about feeling numbness in his legs and then his throat, and asked for help from the hospital staff.
This morning a regular caller to KREM Radio’s Wake Up Belize (WUB) morning show, Goldbourne “Easy Glen” Adolphus, who is hospitalized presently at the KHMH, called and confirmed what the teacher told Ellia, saying that he overheard the man asking for assistance, but said that there was only one doctor there. It was not until almost two hours after the youth said he was getting numb that doctors took him to the operating room.
Edmond, the first relative to identify the body at the morgue, said that he noticed that his brother, who was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans pants, had been stabbed three times – twice in the neck and once in the chest.
He had last seen his brother alive that same Saturday evening, when Albert told him that he now had a new girlfriend, a teacher. That was when he met the woman for the first time, added Edmond, and his brother was jovial as usual.
When we visited Ericka today, you could see her tear-swollen and puffy eyes. She said that she last saw the man she loved dearly on Friday night, sometime around 7:30, when he had gone to drop off her kids at her home. She has two children, who are Albert’s stepchildren, and he had gone for the kids that evening to take them for a ride to his home on Jane Usher Boulevard.
When he returned with the kids, they sat down to talk. He told her that he had a new woman, a teacher, and that he was happy, because she was a nice girl, even though they had only been in a relationship for two weeks.
He left shortly after that. When she went to market the following morning, Saturday, she heard people talking that a man named Albert had been stabbed. That was when a man told her that it was “Cashew,” as he is affectionately known, who had been stabbed. He was at the hospital recovering, though, he told her.
She rushed to the hospital, but when she got there she was told by doctors that he had succumbed to his injuries early that morning. She then visited him at the morgue and said that she also saw the three stab wounds. The one in the chest was larger than the other two wounds, she said, so that you could actually see a hole inside.
She cannot believe it, said Ericka. This actually feels like a bad dream, she said.
The woman who was in the car with Cashew, her husband, was taken to the police station to give a statement.
A post-mortem is scheduled for tomorrow at 7:00, said police. The family will finalize funeral arrangements immediately after. What is already set is that Albert will be laid to rest in his hometown, Punta Gorda.
Besides his mother, eldest brother and ex-common-law wife, Albert leaves behind his two children, Devon and Shaniqua; his other siblings – Ophelia, Victoriano, Delphin, Romaldo and Thelma; several other relatives and friends to mourn his death.