7 News Belize

Mother Loses Second Son to Murder
posted (April 27, 2020)
It's the third state of emergency murder - and the first one in 25 days.

It happened this morning just before 6:00 in Hattieville and the victim was Julian Ebanks. He had moved into his mother's home after a recent release from prison and told her that he expected to be targeted.

And this morning when bullets rang out on their street that frantic mother ran to pull her son out of the drain in which he'd fallen. She spoke to Cherisse Halsall Earlier today.

30 Year Old Julian Ebanks was killed this morning. Shot in cold blood while on his way home.

And this morning his mother, her clothes still drenched in his blood recounted the terrible ordeal she suffered frantically calling the police and the ambulance she had hoped would save him.

Phyllis Rubio, Mother of the deceased
"This morning I was getting ready to go catch a ride to go to Belize because the bus isn't running and when I came downstairs I heard a number of gunshots and I ran out. My stepson said Julian just went up the street so I ran out, I went up the street the young ladies were pointing into the bushes and into the drain so I didn't know where to go. So when I got to them they said someone's down in the drain. I asked them if they saw Julian and they said no they hadn't seen him so I went and I looked in the drain and pulled him up because he was faced down. I pulled him up and turned him over and then I saw that it was him. But I was trying to call 911 and I couldn't get through."

"So I expected it to happen but when I didn't know when it would happen."

"Well I checked by his neck and his whole from his nose go right down full of blood, then I saw he had bullet wounds in both his hands, he had in his chest, his stomach, so I, so that the blood would of helped him and when we got by four miles the ambulance got to us. They took him out, checked him, and put him back. He was already dead."

But Julian was no stranger to police. He was shot in the cheek in 2017 and more recently he was named as a suspect in lighting a man on fire.

Phyllis Rubio, Mother of the deceased
"He got released because they had accused him of burning up some man in Mahogany Heights and he came and after that, he said that they would kill him. He said mom they're going to kill me they want to kill me."

"He was just living with a young lady but after the thing happened at heights he came down here straight from the police station he came here. I think that was over two weeks ago he hadn't gone back."

"Yesterday he borrowed the bike to go down to Hattieville and he said he met some guys and they told him to keep off the road. I told him to keep off the road and told him that he was just one man. He couldn't fight all of them because he didn't have any friends. And then it was a generation of them but, he would still go."

And after in light of the tragedy, the family admits that Julian was troubled.

Phyllis Rubio, Mother of the deceased
"He liked to play but he was short of patience due to not being able to hear well. From where he got shot a couple of years ago at Conch shell bay. So he can't hear when people were coming or nothing."

Linsford Slusher, Step-father of the deceased
"To me he didn't lose his respect to me that way. Because since he got shot in a conch shell bay he had a drinking problem. And when he drank like it got to his nerves like it got to him and it made him not normal, you know, and so I tried to hold him and keep him off of it because when. He's around me. I tried to keep him off of it but you know he was a big man now, it's hard you know."

During our conversation police were still up and down the Bainsville dirt road but Julian's stepfather isn't holding out much hope for a conviction.

Linsford Slusher, Step-father of the Deceased
"The justice what you'd call it is very poor in Belize so I can't say much about that there because a lot of people are getting away. They do make a charge but, they still walk."

"Well I study. I talk to him because he listens to me. He was a nice little fellow you know but I didn't know what he did outside you know because they're programmed on the outside you see but when he's around me he helped me he worked a lot he had the whole yard cleaned up since he was here for two weeks. He helped me a lot. So that's one thing i'll miss him for."

As for Phyllis Rubio, her emotions are difficult to read but if she seems resigned to tragedy it could be because her son's murder was a moment she had long dreaded. Julian is also the second son she's lost to gun violence. So, his death is not only heartbreaking, but world shattering.

Phyllis Rubio, Mother of the deceased
"Leon Ebanks was around Christmas time on Christmas morning down in Hattieville and so this is the second one and the last."

Three men are wanted in connection with Ebank's murder. He is the third persons from the same street in Hattieville to be killed - al this in the space of a few months.

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