Email

Print

38 year old Salvadoran Carlos Rene Granillo and 28 year old Guatemalan Rene Lopez Morentes were acquitted of murder yesterday when they appeared before Supreme Court Judge Antoinette Moore in Belmopan.

In July 2004 they were accused of the murder of 73-year-old American Mary Jane Blondell. The allegation was that the men entered Blondell's home on the Hummingbird Highway on July 25th, 2004, robbed her and then raped and stabbed her in the throat. But after a 7 day trial within a trial to deal with the admissibility of their confession statements, the judge directed the jury to acquit them of the charge. She found that the caution statements they gave were not voluntarily given; evidence shows that they were beaten and forced by police to give these statements so both were ruled as inadmissible.

The men had been on remand for 10 years….