by Charles Gladden
TRIAL FARM VILLAGE, Orange Walk, Thurs. Mar. 6, 2025
An Orange Walk taxi driver was stabbed to death by his passenger on Wednesday night, March 5, and his body was found on the ground after his vehicle crashed into a metal gate.
Sometime after 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 51-year-old Romualdo Vasquez, a taxi driver of Orange Walk Town, was dropping off a passenger at the end of West San Martin Street in the Trial Farm area. However, before his passenger left, the two got into an argument, which led to Vasquez being stabbed with a knife.
He managed to get away, but ultimately crashed his Volkswagen Jetta into a residential metal gate. Police later found a motionless Vasquez on the ground on the right side of the street with stabbed wounds to his throat.
A knife with a yellow handle was found inside his vehicle. Vasquez’s body was taken to the Northern Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
While police are still investigating to determine the motive behind the stabbing of Vasquez, Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams noted that it can be either a case of robbery or an argument turned bloody. Colleagues of Vasquez told reporters that they believe it was robbery.
“We nuh mek lotta money out yah. We just mek our lee bit fu buy a lee something fu ker home [and] for a little money they took away his life. Man, and I don’t think that was fair,” one of them said.
Vasquez would regularly be stationed at the Orange Walk Terminal in the heart of town, waiting for passengers to exit the bus.
“He was one of the few that stayed at the terminal, [until] almost the last bus. So, he used to work, probably when the terminal used to close, but it’s rough … this puts a lid of fear on you because you don’t know who to trust. [It happened] right in Trial Farm that’s populated, and you don’t know who to trust, because you don’t know what that person has in [their] mind. Now, you don’t want to [run] taxi at night,” another of Vasquez’s colleagues mentioned.
Additionally, they noted that they will remember Vasquez as an honest and hardworking individual, and that he will be missed within the taxi community.
Vasquez joined one of the local taxi unions in Orange Walk Town and was a member for approximately six years.