BELIZE CITY, Wed. Aug. 25, 2021– When the bodies of a woman police officer (WPC) and her daughter were found by police after a gruesome double murder and apparent suicide that was believed to be carried out by that WPC’s boyfriend, many members of the public began to wonder what had gone wrong in the relationship between the officer, 32-year-old Arilee Young, and Glenford Perriott, 26. Those speculations by the public seemed to be confirmed when police suggested to reporters that it was a domestic dispute that likely led to the three shootings.
During an interview with local media this week, however, Ornelda Gordon, Arilee Young’s mother, said that her daughter was not in an abusive relationship, and she instead directed attention to a different type of ordeal that her daughter had been experiencing — not in her home, but at her workplace.
Young, a career police officer, was finding it difficult to secure her time-off and holiday benefits, according to her mother, who asserted that on the day of her death Young was supposed to have gone to spend the day with her but was instead ordered to report to work by her commanding officer. Gordon believes that Young’s death could have been averted if she had been allowed to take her time off.
The family of Young’s boyfriend, Glenford Perriott, who allegedly killed Young and her daughter, Shania Cardenes, 17, before turning the gun on himself, is also insisting that the police’s version of what happened is wrong. Perriott’s older brother, Robert Muschamp, told Amandala that his brother was an easy-going person who was never involved in any form of conflict. He said that, from his family’s perspective, the young couple had been doing well, and he, like Gordon, dispelled any notion of domestic abuse.
Muschamp said that the news of his younger brother’s death and the circumstances surrounding the three deaths was a shock to both families.
Perriott, according to Muschamp, was humble, and was loyal to the few friends he had, and there was no indication that anyone would want to harm him or his family.
The families, while disputing police’s claims about domestic abuse, are puzzled about what exactly could have taken place. They are thus waiting for the results of post-mortem examinations on the victims’ bodies, which they hope will provide some answers.
Robert Muschamp, the older brother of Glenford Perriott, expressed his condolences to the family of Arilee Young and her daughter and to his own family. Notably, Glenford Perriott’s mother expressed similar sentiments when she spoke to local media this week. She remarked that Young was a “sweet woman” who always spoke kindly to her and who had been arranging a family birthday gathering at which they would have met for the first time, since they had only communicated via phone calls or texts.