There is one weekend murder to report tonight - but it didn't happen in the city or any major population center; it happened in a canefield near Belize's northern-most village, Chan Chen.
37 year old Israel Matu was found dead in a cane field near the village. Daniel Ortiz found out more about the strange circumstances of his death:
Daniel Ortiz Reporting
The body of 37 year old Israel Matu, a resident of Pachakan Village in the Corozal District, was discovered in a cane field about a mile away from his home on Sunday morning.
The state that his family discovered him in has led them to believe that he was beaten to death.
Leopoldo Matu - Father of the Deceased
"I found him dead without clothes, his head busted up and when I saw tht he passed, I felt something like something cold, my hair stood up and I got a little afraid. I told my wife not to go see it because he is without clothes. I took off my shirt, covered him, told my daughter to call the police."
According to his father, the last time he was seen on alive was on Friday night.
Leopoldo Matu
"When I passed by Chan Chen, I went in to a bar there, Rosita, and she told me - I asked her if she saw the boy already, she said, 'Yes, he drank 2 beers here, and 10 o'clock at night, he moved from there.' He told her that he's going home."
And he believes that those people who he was socializing with at the bar may have had a hand in his death.
Leopoldo Matu
"He had - because I ask the man who hired him, the white man - he told us this morning that he paid the man $500 dollars and those guys saw that he had money. They went in after him in the village."
Duane Moody - Channel 5 News
"So you believe that it was the same persons he was socializing with at Rosita Bar, that they were the ones that assaulted him?"
Leopoldo Matu
"I think so because they saw the man had money, and because of that money I think they kill him."
Matu was the father of four children.
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