5 years later, there has been no justice for the Special Constable’s murder in front of tourists at Caracol

BELIZE CITY, Fri. Sept. 27, 2019– On September 25, 2015, Jean Glannis Conorquie was at her workplace at Venus Store in San Ignacio when police officers visited her. One female police officer asked, her where was her son, Danny Conorquie.

Jean Conorquie, who is Danny Conorquie’s mother, remembers telling the officers that he was at work at the Caracol archaeological site. “When is he coming back?” the officer reportedly pressed Conorquie.

“He told me that he is coming back on Saturday,” Conorquie said she replied.

There was a strangeness in the appearance of the police officers, Conorquie recalled. She said that the female police officer continued, “I don’t know how to tell you this,” before she (the officer) began crying.

“Danny got shot,” she managed to blurt out, before being overcome with grief over the bad news she had to deliver.

“I told her no de run joke like that with me,” Conorquie recalled.

 “We are very sorry, one of the male officers told Conorquie, as they hugged her and told her how it happened.

“When my boss took me to my home in Georgeville, a crowd had already gathered there,” said Conorquie. Danny Conorquie, however, was not there. “I was asking, where is Danny, and then I saw my sister started bawling, and I said this must be true,” Conorquie recalled.

“I told the police officers to take me to where my little boy is,” Conorquie said. “They told me that it was too far.”

That was the beginning of a mother’s grief over her slain son, who had died a heroic death doing what he loved, being a serving police officer.

Conorquie, 49, said the first year after her son’s death, she was mostly at home mourning his loss, “looking at his picture and crying a lot.” “Then I told myself that I have to do something to keep Danny’s name alive. So on my own, I started a back-to-school program,” she said.

Conorquie, who spoke to us by phone from her home in Georgeville, explained that when she started the Danny Conorquie Foundation, she had initially started to cater to 12 children going back to school, “because that is what I could afford.”

“Then I ran into one of my friends, and she told me, why not register the foundation,” Conorquie explained.

After the Danny Conorquie Foundation was registered, Conorquie’s friend advised her to go to the various businesses to solicit help.

Not only did Conorquie establish a foundation in honor of her son’s name, but as the first anniversary of his death was approaching, she got a call telling her that Danny Conorquie would be given an honor by the State, and she had to go to receive it on his behalf.

Conorquie said Governor General Sir Colville Young told her, “Your son died as a hero, and you should walk with your head high, and believe in your son.”
We asked Conorquie what type of compensation she had received from the government.

Conorquie said one day she got a call from the Ministry of Finance, and they told her that they had some money to give her as compensation for Danny’s death.

She said that she was still grieving over the loss of her son, who was the breadwinner of her home, but decided to accept what the government was offering her.

We asked Conorquie what the Police Department told her about the investigation into the shooting of her son.

“Nobody contacted me to tell me anything,” Conorquie replied, “It’s just like what the news has been reporting; they know it’s the Guatemalans, but they have not been able to pinpoint anybody specifically.”

Conorquie, however, is still hoping that one day, “they will call me and tell me that they found the shooter.” “I pray and I leave it to God Almighty,” she said.

We asked Conorquie to tell us how her son became interested in becoming a Police Special Constable.

Conorquie explained that a police officer named PC Serra had started a Police Cadet in Georgeville, and he invited Danny to become a police cadet.

She explained that one day she got a call that Danny was locked up at the police station in Georgeville. One police officer called her and told her not to worry too much, because they were only trying to frighten him “to be straight”.

Conorquie recalled that when Danny came home, he told her that being a “bad man” was not made for him, and that he wanted to become a policeman.

She went on to say that when he was called up for an interview, he did not have the clothing to attend, but a neighbor helped him out with that, and it was the happiest day of her life when he was accepted to serve as a Special Constable in the Tourism Unit.