So, that is the second murder case Orange Walk police are working on. The first happened last night when a man was killed with a single shot to the head. It happened on a feeder road near the A&R compound in Orange Walk.Â
26 year old Darren Gentle - who was reportedly in the area to participate in a roadside transaction- may have been set up by the very man he had gone there to meet.Â
Cherisse Halsall reports:
This was the scene last night just after 7:30 on a feeder road just off the northern highway in Orange Walk where police discovered the body of 26 year old Darren Gentle. He was slumped forward on the driver's side of a Grey and white Chevrolet Trailblazer.
And while the motive for this murder remains unclear, Gentle and a companion were reportedly in the area to conduct a transaction with someone who was waiting for them. Police told us more, earlier today.
Hilberto Romero - Sr. Supt, Deputy Head, NCIB "On Wednesday the 23rd day of October 2019 around 7:30pm police visited a road north of A&R distributors in San Jose Village where they found the lifeless body of Darren Gentle, 27 years office assistant at the ministry of works with gunshot injuries, motionless, apparently dead inside a vehicle. Information received was that he was along with another male person they went to the area to meet with other persons thereafter one person showed up, thereafter another person came and fired shots toward the deceased. We are seeking one person in connection to this investigation and the investigation is ongoing at this time."
We know that a transaction was going on, was it an illicit transaction, do the police know?
We do not know at this time they went there to meet with other persons in that area.
It was during that roadside meeting that a gunman emerged from the bushes and shot Gentle, killing him instantly, His companion escaped on foot, while the man they went to meet then fled the scene in the same getaway car - which strongly suggests that the murder was a setup.
We spoke to Gentle's former Crooked Tree neighbour and long-time friend Steve Anthony. He was stunned, and told us that no one could have believed that Darren would have ended up like this.                                Â
Steve Anthony Perriot - Neighbour and Friend "I've known Darren for about fifteen years. I've watched Darren grow up and Darren is a real cool young man. He has a lot of bright ideas. He was always thinking out of the box and I never knew him as a bad kid. I never knew him as a troubled kid. He moved to Orange Walk about two years ago from Crooked Tree but he came back to Crooked Tree all the time, as a matter of fact the night before he was killed he was crooked tree. It's a shock to everybody we didn't think that Darren would end up like that and our heart breaks. Darren's mom is in New York and he lived in Crooked Tree and every evening while he was there he would come to our house you know and we just hung out we would talk about space, we would talk about God, and that's another thing people feel like when young people get together they just talk about you know crazy things. No. you know we spoke about, and I'm not young but we spoke about all kinds of things and that's how I knew that Darren had a lot of potential. And again I watched him grow from a little kid into a man who took up his responsibilities and to see his life cut short like that you know it kind of rips a piece of you right out of your body too."
And Steve Anthony says his heart breaks, not only for Darren Gentle, but for all the young men that have been violently gunned down.
Steve Anthony Perriot "On a bigger picture it's for all the young men that are being killed out there. Our heart breaks the same way for everyone and it seems like the country is just becoming numb to it and it's a shame. And you listen to it on the news and you feel for the people and you never realize it could be you. So I really, I know that the police men can't legislate crime away or the government can't legislate away crime but it's the individual people we have to want to make a change. We have to get enough of this."
In a postmortem today Darren Gentle's cause of death was determined to have been a traumatic brain injury due to a single gunshot wound. Two nine millimeter expended shells and two live rounds were found on the scene. Â
Gentle is the son of Ministry of Works CEO, Errol Gentle. Â
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