INDEPENDENCE, Stann Creek District, Thurs. Feb. 1, 2018– The Oh family of San Antonio, Toledo District, along with residents of their village, the Alcalde Association and other Maya communities of the south, are still reeling after the brutal murders of the Oh sisters, Josephine, 18, and Cresencia, 20.
The young ladies had gone to church services in San Jose, Toledo, on Sunday evening, January 21, and were returning home, on foot, when they were attacked and hacked to death. Their partially nude, severely chopped-up bodies were found lying on the roadside later that night.
Autopsies conducted on the bodies of the young women determined that they both died from acute craneo-encephatic trauma injuries due to multiple chop wounds to their heads.
Police investigations into the heinous deaths led to a suspect who was identified as being from Bella Vista.
On Tuesday, police announced that Wilmar Alexander Escobar, 21, an unemployed man from Bella Vista, Toledo District, was captured by Independence police, who found him in San Isidro, a village in the Stann Creek District.
The police said that Escobar confessed to murdering the two sisters, and that when they found him, he had scratches and bite marks on his body and was in possession of a cell phone belonging to one of the sisters. Police believe that the terrible murders were crimes of opportunity.
After he was arrested, Escobar was taken to Punta Gorda, where he was charged with 2 counts of murder for the deaths of Josephine and Cresencia Oh.
Yesterday, Wednesday, he was taken to the Punta Gorda Magistrate’s Court where he was remanded until April 26.
The family of the Oh sisters said that on Sunday, January 21, the sisters left home in San Antonio and went with a Mennonite group to a church in San Jose. After church, the sisters went to visit their brother who lives in San Jose. At about 7:30 that evening, the girls left San Jose, on foot, to return to San Antonio. When they were about 2 miles out of San Jose, the killer attacked and chopped them.
A man who was walking on the San Jose Road to the village, alerted the police after he saw the dead bodies of the sisters lying on the ground on the roadside.