BELIZE CITY. Mon. Feb. 28, 2022– Two men from Bullet Tree Falls village in the Cayo District were detained by police for driving a vehicle that was reportedly stolen during a home invasion that occurred in Hattieville on Sunday morning, February 27. Those men were later charged in connection with the burglary of the home.
At around 12:30 a.m. on that day, Theodore Gabourel, a security guard, was at home with his common-law wife, Laura-Mae Mortis, and a child who is Mortis’ granddaughter, when he was awakened by someone shouting “police” outside of his home. When he ventured outside to find out what was happening, he was held up at gunpoint by two men.
The robbers then proceeded to tie up the family and ransack their home. At some point, they also allegedly hit Gabourel in the back with a gun. They then stole approximately $2,000 in different denominations, as well as jewelry worth several thousand dollars and Mortis’ grey 2014 Toyota Hilux pickup truck, in which they escaped.
The accused men, since identified as Charlie Martinez, 34, and Angel Mayen, 23, residents of Bullet Tree Falls, in the Cayo District, were later detained by police at the Bullet Tree Falls checkpoint, near the country’s western border, sometime after 4:30 a.m. that morning, after the pickup truck matching the description listed in Gabourel’s report to police was spotted by officers. The officers later confirmed, by checking the VIN number of the vehicle, that it was indeed the stolen Hilux.
Communications Director of the Police Department, ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, had initially told local reporters that both men would be charged with “handling stolen goods” and possibly theft. He indicated, however, that police were engaged in efforts to gather evidence that would establish a connection between the men and the home invasion, after which more serious charges would be brought against Mayen and Martinez.
“I know that investigators are trying their very best to prove their involvement in the original home invasion. But, like I said, the investigation is still pretty young and we are not rushing, we’re trying to cover all bases, and we will see whether or not we can prove them to be perpetrators of that crime,” Yearwood had said.
“Now that we know, this crime that took place a few hours later we recovered the vehicle. Our investigators know how to piece that together, and we’re hoping that after connecting the dots we can charge all parties involved, hopefully, [depending] on what we gathered in this investigation,” he had remarked.
It appears that they were able to establish that connection, because when Mayen and Martinez appeared in the Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, they were charged with wounding (for allegedly hitting Gabourel in the back with a gun) and aggravated burglary and were remanded to the Belize Central Prison. They pleaded not guilty to both charges. Their next court appearance is scheduled to take place on April 28. Although they were not offered bail in the Magistrate’s Court, since a gun was used in the commission of the home invasion, they have the option of applying for bail in the Supreme Court.
In recent years, a number of Hilux pickup trucks have been stolen from Belize and taken for sale across the Guatemalan border, where these vehicles appear to be in high demand. ASP Yearwood believes that this was the plan of Mayen and Martinez, based on the location in which they were found.
“We believe so far of the nature and the place that we found the stolen vehicle, we believe that they were definitely targeted for that vehicle, because if you notice that being found in Santa Familia is no distance away from the Guatemalan border and we have seen a trend when these Hilux go missing that they try to get it as quickly as possible towards the border or across the border in some of these cases,” Yearwood said.
He added, “We know that there is a high demand for that kind of vehicle in Guatemala, and whether or not he was unfortunate, whether the orchestrators of that crime are from Belize District itself, is what the investigators are trying to put together. We wouldn’t want the general public into [a] high state of panic and at the same time, if you’re the owner of these vehicles, we want you to be very alert. And the paramount importance is your safety. We’re not telling you to go out there and to hurry sell your truck, because people buy things for their own convenience and these are people of humble earnings, and we are very happy that our officers’ diligent work and their alertness on duty helped us to recover this pickup before it went into Guatemala, and we would have had a more difficult task to try to recover it,” continued ASP Yearwood.
He further commented, “This isn’t the first Toyota Hilux that went missing from the Belize District, and we have seen where some have [gone] missing in the Cayo District, indeed. Now, we are putting together the puzzle.”