A murder at an upscale resort outside Teakettle Village was the first homicide of the new year. 30 year old Swiss and CUBAN national, Yaima Duany was killed right in front of her guests at Dream Valley Resort which is on the Young Gial Road. It's a gorgeous location, and the Lodge was running at full capacity with all 8 cabanas full with 17 guests. Duany had just brought in two more from the Airport when two men of creole descent went up into the bar and ordered a stout. But, they never even waited to be served; in an instant, one of them turned, took out a nine millimeter pistol and shot Duany in the head - right in front of the guests. He released four more shots - and then they drove off - without taking anything. Today Belmopan police say they are aggressively seeking suspects:..
Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"She was shot I believe once to the head and another time to the upper body. We believe that 5 rounds were expended during the ordeal of which 2 fatally wounded Ms. Duany. The evidence that we have thus far is showing us that Ms. Duany was the intended target. Two persons arrived and they ask specifically for her and then they executed her, so it seems that she was the target and no one else. During the incident no one else was injured and there were other people including tourists at the time of the incident. We are told and one of the motives lead us to believe that sometime ago she got a verbal threat, but it was never reported to the police. We are so sorry that it wasn't reported because if we had gotten that information prior to this, we would have put security measures in place to ensure that we deal with the threat."
Jules Vasquez
"Some tourists who have booked or who may be thinking about making a booking at that resort or in Cayo, may say wow, there is a security issue in the Cayo District. How would you respond to that?"
Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"I would respond by saying that we believe just by what we have so far that Ms. Duany was the intended target and it's in no way a threat against the entire tourism industry of Belize. It's just simply something went wrong and Ms. Duany was targeted, but it's very unrelated to other sectors of the tourism industry of Belize."
Jules Vasquez
"Are you alarm or concern of the brazenness of the crime since they wore no masks, they did it in front of Belizeans and foreigners, they apparently had no regard whatsoever to being caught or being identified?"
Supt. Howell Gillett - OC, Belmopan Police
"Of course we do. Hence the reason why we are moving so aggressively to bring the person or persons responsible to justice."
All 17 guests have left the resort - the last two rolled out this morning and didn't want to talk to us or the police. The resort has cancelled all other bookings it had for this week. Employees tell us they are at the height of the high season and hope they can make a comeback. And that is why police are stressing that the crime was not an attack on the resort, but a direct targeting of Duany. What's the motive? Police refused to speculate but those we spoke to in the area noted that she had been going through a difficult break - up after a possessive relationship. She had no children and had been managing the resort for two years.
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