BELIZE CITY, Mon. Mar. 21, 2022– A 44-year-old man, Henry Charles Baptist, a resident of Santa Elena Town, was murdered in the village of Cristo Rey in the Cayo District sometime during the late hours of Saturday night, March 19.
Police visited a secluded area on the Cristo Rey Road in the Cayo District, where they discovered Baptist’s motionless body in a pool of blood. Upon closer examination of the body, the officers discovered an apparent gunshot wound. It appears that the victim was shot and left for dead.
Prior to being killed, Baptist and other members of his family had attended a wake in Cristo Rey for his brother, Jesse Espat, who was found dead in Orange Walk just a few days earlier. Reports are that he had received threats from persons in the village that he would be harmed if he was seen in the area.
“Mister Baptist was in the village the night before attending a wake for a relative, and sometime after 1:00 a.m., he walked without telling anyone he was going, but it not until the following morning when his body was discovered and that person called police and [stated] what they saw,” stated ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Communications Director of the Police Department.
As mentioned, police believe that Baptist, who has had a number of run-ins with the law, was killed due to a prior altercation he had with a few men in the area who had warned him to stay away.
“He has had his fair share of run-ins with the law, and apparently, there were persons in Cristo Rey Village in the past that he may have offended, and those persons were sending threats that if he visited the area what would take place, and I must say that they lived through with their threats,” ASP Yearwood said.
Ralph Pilley, a resident of the area, explained that he was awakened by the sound of what he thought was kids lighting firecrackers in the area, but that noise was actually the gunshots that took Baptist’s life.
“It was Saturday night; I don’t know the time. I was awakened by what I thought at the time were firecrackers. I mean, we hear firecrackers all the time, and so somebody shooting firecrackers, and then my next thought was ‘but it’s not a holiday—why anybody would be shooting firecrackers?’ And the sounds I heard were two pops real close together and then a pause and then a third pop. And right after that third pop, there was a motorcycle engine that revved up. The thing went full speed, down this road, down the hill towards San Ignacio, and a car right behind it a couple [of] seconds’ right behind,” recounted Pilley.
“So I went back to bed, I didn’t imagine that anybody had been shot, you know. I thought it was some kids blowing up firecrackers. And it wasn’t until I got up later that morning, I then came out and saw that there have been a shooting. When I came out here, the police were already here and had cordoned off the body and, to be honest with you, when I first came by I thought that somebody was hit by a car, you know, some person was drinking and came in late to their house and got struck by a car, until I asked the police, they said it was a shooting,” he said.
.Pilley said that he had never seen Baptist in the area before.
“My wife and I have lived here for about 2 months now, and we’ve met maybe 8 or 10 people, and I didn’t get a good look at the body that was laying here. And I know now, this person’s name, never heard that name before, and in the picture that I’ve seen on the internet is not a picture that I’ve seen before,” he said.
Police have one person detained and charges will be levied against that person in connection with the murder of Baptist.
Baptist’s body was transported to the San Ignacio Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead by medical personnel at around 6:00 a.m. on Sunday.