_{Photo: Manuel Fernandez, deceased}

by Charles Gladden

DANGRIGA, Stann Creek District, Mon. Oct. 21, 2024

Dangriga police have found the dismembered remains of a man who was allegedly murdered over the weekend in front of a butcher shop in Dangriga Town.

Initial reports indicate that sometime after 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 19, 25-year-old Loren Vanegas and 32-year-old Manuel Fernandez, Jr., two co-workers, were inside G&A’s meat shop on Ecumenical Drive when the duo got into an argument.

The argument escalated into a physical exchange where Vanegas produced a knife and fatally stabbed Fernandez. When police arrived at the scene, there was no sight of a body, only blood stains where the incident reportedly occurred.

According to ACP Hilberto Romero, Regional Commander for the Belize Police Department’s Eastern Division, when police arrived at the scene Vanegas was acting suspiciously when he was questioned, which led to his detention.

Additional reports indicated that when police were doing searches at the butcher shop near which the murder allegedly occurred, they found 52 grams of marijuana inside a freezer, stored in white bags. The following day, a plastic barrel was found at sea near Pelican Beach Resort, and when it was retrieved, the dismembered body of Fernandez was found inside.

Latest reports are that police have arrested and charged “25-year-old Loren Timoteo Vanegas, a Belizean salesman of Dangriga Town, for the crime of murder.”