This morning at 5:45, 62 year old Marcel Samuels and his wife got off the bus at mile 19 and a half on the George Price Highway to walk into their cattle farm which is in the Butcher Burns area.

When they were about half a mile down the road, a pair of men on motorbike pulled up - and one of them shot Samuels in the head. After that they hit his wife in her head with a machete - but she escaped without serious injury.

It's a bewildering attack - since there was no robbery - it was just basically an execution at dawn. But, there is something in our archives which may spark a connection. In February of last year, Samuels reported that two cows had been stolen, in addition two more that had been stolen in the weeks before. That's a total loss of nearly eight thousand dollar s- and police arrested two men - who are pending trial. Police suspect that persons related to this case may have ambushed and killed him to do away with the case. Again, that is just one of the angles police are looking at for a murder that had no known motive.

Samuels was a highly skilled jeweler, and, more recently, a butcher who operated out of his home here on Cemetery Lane in Belize City. He would leave very early on Friday's to go to his farm for meat, so his movements were well known.