7 News Belize

A Daylight Killing On Mahogany
posted (February 27, 2012)
Belize City residents will know that Mahogany Street is one of the busiest roads in the city.

But this morning around 9:30, a 52 year old father of six was killed right on the sidewalk.

It seems John Lamb got into a misunderstanding with a younger man who struck him.

The force of the blow knocked him down and witnesses say he hit his head and never got up again. 7news was on the scene - and we spoke to his family:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

Mahogany Street was cordoned off today as 52 year-old John Lamb - was propped up against a cement fence this morning.

He looked like a drunkard that may have been leaning up, but in fact, he was dead. Eyewitnesses say a younger man had struck him in the head, and he fell to the ground dying either immediately or shortly after:

Joycelyn Lamb - Sister of Deceased
"I really don't want my brother's death to go like this because he is no man who could - that person who did that to my brother - he didn't deserve that. He is 52; he is a big man to that young man who did that to my brother. And when he was finished he said the words like this too - and people heard him when he said it - what he did, he was to do a long time ago. And my brother's death will not go just like that. 2 of my brothers went like that already, and this one won't go like that. I am telling you all straight. It will not go like that."

He had been known to hang out at the adjoining Chinese Store, where he often drinks:

Joycelyn Lamb
"We know that he drinks and we expected that he would have fell down with his blood pressure from drinking. We didn't expect anybody to 'chance' my brother like that."

His sister Yvonne who lives nearby was the first family member on the scene:

Yvonne Lamb - Younger Sister of Deceased
"I just got stagnated. I couldn't do anything else, and watch him because when he left from home he wasn't like that."

Arm in arm, Yvonne had to take her sister to the scene of her brother's death - for the disturbing image. while another sibling turned away from the sight:

Yvonne Lamb
"What they did to him, nobody deserves that, and I will pray for the person who did to him. I don't have any feeling against him; I'll pray for him the same way."

Today his children and sisters gathered outside the family home - it's his younger daughter's birthday today - and it will be his older girl's birthday tomorrow

Therese Lamb - Daughter of Deceased
"They told me that he was out there, probably drunk, laying out there. So My aunt called me back and told me that He's dead. I thought that tomorrow, he would have been here with me celebrating my birthday, but they took a loving father from us. They truly took a loving father from us."

Joycelyn - Lamb
"Please I want this to stop, because everybody's family is dying like this. People don't have dog. That is our loving brother. When we went out there; we didn't like what a young lady passed by and said, 'Oh, the homeless man died.' He is not a homeless man. He has a family, and we love him. So, I don't want anybody classing him as any homeless man."

Therese Lamb
"He was a father, a grandfather, and he had people who really and truly loved him. And he had a home."

Now this family has to contend with the grief of the loss and the stigma of a man found dead in the street:

Police detained the key suspect at the scene.

He is detained at this time.

John Lamb's funeral will be held on Saturday.

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