The story starts here inside A & G Meat shop in Dangriga off Ecumenical drive, leaving one man in the morgue and another in police custody after receiving information of an alleged stabbing turned murder over the weekend. ACP Romero explained how the murder investigation started without a body:

ACP Hilberto Romero, OC Eastern Division
"Police arrived there and found the proprietor Loren Vanegas he was questioned and he was acting suspicious. He was taken into custody and the scene was processed. On Sunday the police responded to a report that a body had been found inside a plastic barrel in front of the Pelican Beach resort in Dangriga. The scene was processed, the person was removed from the barrel and he was identified as Manuel Fernandez. Investigation revealed that Manuel Fernandez and Loren Vanegas were involved in a fight at the meat shop and Vanegas inflicted the stab wounds to Manuel Fernandez causing his fatal injuries. Loren Vanegas is now in custody pending charges."

The two were co-workers at the butcher shop, but what happened to Fernandez? In a chilling twist of events, for one tour guide it began with a suspicious barrel floating in the sea near Pelican beach resort. And his curiosity led him straight to Fernandez's body.

Omar Gillet, Tour guide
"We come out here Sunday morning about roughly a little bit after 8 we sit down right on that boat there and me and my friends were talking one thing to the next and a little bit after that my friend looked out to the sea and when he looked out at the sea he saw a blue thing floating. So when he saw this blue thing floating we said well let's go check it. And well we have a dory right there so. So we turned over the dory and push out the dory and we paddled out roughly about 100 yards out where the barrel was. And when we got to the drum we dragged the drum all the way up to the beach. And when we dragged the drum to the beach we lift up the drum and when we opened it we found a dead man in this drum."

Jo-
"All the body parts?"

Omar Gillet, Tour guide
"Well he wasn't chopped up to pieces. We found him upside down with his foot up and his butt up and his head was in the drum so instant we called the police station and the police came and assisted and they came to see the crime and they took over."

Gillet said a body in that state was the last thing they thought they would find. But he believes that if it wasn't for them police would have never found the deceased.

Omar Gillet, Tour guide
"Well we didn't know what was in the drum it could be anything because sometimes you know the Colombians throw away gas and stuff so we went to check it to see if it's gas but when we opened it, there was a dead body in the drum. So that's why we went out there to bring it in because we said well it's gas but little did we know it's not gas it was a dead body they towed out there to sink but it never sank. If we didn't come out here then it would drift and that barrel would end up in front of the burying ground if we didn't come out here and find it, but we saw it so we brought it in and that's how we assisted the police."

And as for the family of the accused, we spoke to his older brother who swears that investigators have got the story all wrong, and his brother is innocent.

Sherman Alton, Brother of Accused
"And it is totally a lie that they accuse my brother of murder, my brother would never do such a thing as that it's a total lie whosoever did that murder we do not know. Many people here in Dangriga get murdered and they accuse the wrong person. My brother would never do something like that."

Jo
"Why do you think someone would want to frame your brother?"

Sherman Alton, Brother of Accused
"Well you know you have a lot of people that hate you for nothing. Because they see you got this they see you got that they just hate at you for that reason."

Vanegas will need a more persuasive alibi if he is charged for this murder of his co worker and an alleged attempt to make the body "sleep with the fishes."

We note that Vanegas was also arrested and charged for the possession of controlled drugs after a white plastic bag containing marijuana was found in a freezer in the meat shop during the police search for the body of the deceased.

We note that Vanegas is also related to Ashton Vanegas who was found guilty of the 2017 decapitation murder of Pastor Llewelyn Lucas.