Randy Leroy Vasquez, 21, a resident of Dangriga Town, is dead following a terrible misunderstanding with his friends. He was stabbed directly in the heart and is said to have died almost immediately.
Vasquez, who was employed at the Citrus Products of Belize Limited (CPBL), resided in the 2nd New Site Area of Dangriga Town with his girlfriend of five years, Carlotta Whitty, 20. The young couple had no children, and all indications from his loved ones were that he was a family-oriented young man with a jovial and lovable personality.
In the Dangriga community, where people’s lives are much more closely tied together than in the city, the talk of a murder has gripped the residents. According to police, the murder took place at approximately 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 17, 2011, at a bus stop shed located on Pen Road, Benguche Area, Dangriga Town.
Police say that there was a sort of Christmas party occurring in the vicinity of the bus shed on Saturday, and that a group of boys were hanging out around the bus shed when another group of boys were passing. Vasquez was in the group of passing males.
Apparently, it was at this point that one of the passing males, Jacob Lammey, 18, a laborer and resident of Gumagarugu Street, approached a minor, 16, who was sitting under the shed. They had had a previous misunderstanding regarding a bicycle, and they got into a physical altercation, police told us.
Lammey, police say, first pushed and then punched the minor. Things became extremely serious when, police say, the minor “[was stabbed] in the left side of his abdomen. A struggle then ensued between [the minor] and Jacob Lammey for the knife, when Randy Vasquez intervened.”
For his efforts at mediation, Vasquez was stabbed once in the left side of the chest, directly in the heart.
Police say reports to them were that he ran a few feet away from the fight, but collapsed, lying face up in a pool of his own blood, dead. Police transported Vasquez’s body to the Dangriga Southern Regional Hospital, where it now awaits a post-mortem.
A police press release says that “Police have since detained [the minor] pending the outcome of the investigation,” and they told us tonight that the minor was arraigned in court this afternoon on a charge of murder.
As for the minor’s attacker, who stabbed him in the abdomen, police say that the matter is “complicated,” and that they are still in the process of recording statements. Once that is done, we were told, the file will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for her to make a decision on whether the minor’s attacker will also be charged.
Carlotta Whitty told us today that she was at her home in the 2nd New Site Area waiting for Vasquez to return home when she was told of his death by his brother.
Whitty explained that Vasquez, who is the youngest of three children for his parents, was a hardworking man who was always positive. “I don’t understand everything, but what I heard is that he tried to part the fight, and that’s when he got stabbed. It’s very difficult. It’s hard. He was a fun-loving person,” she said.