7 News Belize

Turning now to crime, there was a murder in Belize City last night.

41-year-old William Rubio was fatally stabbed on a crowded street just before 7:00. This morning Cherisse Halsall headed to the Pound Yard area to find out what turned a quiet taxi stand into a murder scene.

Just before 7:00 last night William Rubio was lying flat on his back on Cemetery Road. He'd been stabbed to the left side of his neck and could only look up at the night sky and at the crowd that had assembled to watch him take his dying breaths. It's a cruel and nightmarish death for the sometimes-homeless man who'd only wanted to listen to some music.

Japeth Gamero - Friend

"I came right here beside him we started to drink together and you know he's been my friend for a while, he comes down here sometimes and spends the night and he's just like me and like everybody else and we were drinking and the man he said he paid the taxi man to put on music and the taxi man, I guess he got a client or something he lowered down then, so Rubio he got up and he went to talk to the taxi man but he had like an attitude too like when he talks, like Mexican but in English, and so he went to talk to the taxi man, and the taxi man is his friend too they were getting along but it looks like the taxi man's brother was partying, he was partying and he passed and said bwoy don't talk to my family like that. And it was then Julius he like he was defending himself and talking sick. I just stayed there sitting down watching the whole play going on and I saw bally swing his hand at him but I didn't notice it was a knife that bally swung after him. I just saw that he didn't catch him but I didn't realize that it didn't catch him because the blade caught him and that's when I said I see Julius there standing up and those guys took off running there, and the taxi man he stayed there but when Julius dropped flat on his back on the ground that's when I jumped up and I walked towards Julius and I see him on the ground."

And while all that commotion was happening on the street, Darren Dicans was inside the dream Barbershop dealing with clients

Darren Dicans - Eyewitness

"I was busy cutting hair and somebody was standing up to the front and they knocked on the glass and you know because fights normally happen around here by pound yard and he said, he pointed over to what was happening by the taxi stand and in less than like 30 seconds I just saw the man drop on the ground right on his back and the next man that stabbed him just ran somewhere towards the gas station. And then a crowd approached there quick and tried to assist and see how they could have rushed the man to the hospital."

Cherisse Halsall

"Did you go out there?"

Darren Dicans

"Yeah I went to see the man on the ground."

Cherisse Halsall

"Was he gasping for air at that point?"

Darren Dicans

"Well at that point I think he was done, life, he was already out of breath and had lost a lot of blood. Everything was just a slow process and it happened, it just happened too quick and you couldn't really, you know move that fast."

Dicans is still recovering from the shock of Rubio's murder, knowing now that a life can pivot on a single moment that could have gone the other way.

He says that Rubio was waiting on a haircut that could have kept him out of harm's way.

Darren Dicans

"So, I told him ok just give me a minute I'll get through right now. And he said alright I'll be right out here. It was then when we saw what happened and when I realized that it was the same man that I was supposed to have cut after that, that he just dropped on the ground. I just feel like at that point he had come and I was free and I was cutting his hair cause once I tell somebody that I will get this done I stick to my words and once if he had come and I was free he would have been in my chair and I would have been you know, hooking him up."

Police were on the scene just after it happened and pursued the suspected culprit - who they successfully detained. He is in custody pending investigation.