Daniel Elvis Ku, 27, is under arrest by Orange Walk Police after they received a telephone call from him, Ku, to the effect that he had killed his wife, Anna Maria Magdaleno Basto, a 37- year-old nurse, stabbing her to death after they became involved in an argument.
Police said that sometime around 7:00 on Saturday morning, December 16, they received the call from Ku, who only said that he had killed his wife at her residence at #2 Otro Benque Road in Orange Walk Town. They were quick in making a check at the residence, where they found Anna’s lifeless body. She had a very deep stab wound to the neck. Police found a surgical blade on the scene which they believe was the weapon used in the murder.
Basto, who was a nurse at the Northern Regional Hospital, now lies in her work establishment’s morgue, where a post mortem was conducted on her. It certified that she died from asphyxia due to total trachea injuries as a consequence of a sharp object.
Initial investigations by the police revealed that sometime around 2:00 that Saturday morning the couple had an argument, and Ku stabbed her.
Today at a press conference held at the Orange Walk Police Station conference room, Inspector Leslie Logan said that investigations have revealed that the argument began because Ku, who had been estranged from Basto for a while because he had a drug problem, heard that she had collected her triple bonus pay that Friday and wanted some money to buy drugs. Basto refused, and that is when Ku became upset and took the knife out of her kitchen and stabbed her.
Ku then took a screwdriver and stabbed his common-law wife thirty-two times with it.
According to co-workers of Basto, she had been living in an abusive relationship for awhile and she had made it known. Many of them had given Basto advice, but it seemed as if she was still having a relationship with Ku.
What gives them additional pain, said the deceased’s co-workers, is the fact that even after Ku did what he heartlessly did, being so close to the hospital and her workplace he could have called earlier, but he waited until she was dead, almost six hours later.
Today Basto’s co-workers mourn her shocking death and over her portrait surrounded by burning candles, they have many charts and posters advocating against domestic abuse. And like the commercial that says, “…I got flowers today,” Basto’s friends and family members will be the ones giving the last set of flowers.