BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC -Police say they have arrested and charged a 22-year-old fisherman with the execution style killings of three people last week, even as the family of the accused is challenging the police account of the murders.
“On Saturday, March 21, 2026, police formally arrested and charged 22-year-old Shelby Jonathan Hernandez, a Belizean fisherman of San Pedro town, for three counts of murder,” Assistant Superintendent of Police Stacy Smith said.
“Hernandez is known to police, having been recently convicted of being a member of a gang, namely the San Pedro Crips Gang,” she added.
The police said Karim Espat, Oscar Mas, and Yerline Bueso Alvarez were killed after multiple gunmen stormed a home and opened fire, describing the arrest of Hernandez as a major development in the case.
But the family members of the accused are discounting the police version of the events and say that he was at home at the time of the murders. They claim that surveillance footage backs them up.
The brother of the accused, John Carlos Hernandez, told local media, “We got all the videos, all my family members know he is innocent.”
But Smith said that in her discussions with the investigators, “they said yes, they, in fact, visited the family pretty shortly after the incident, as soon as that information came to them.
“In the interest of conducting a thorough investigation, the video footage was extracted; however, it was not able to conclusively support their version of events, and based on the investigation and the evidence gathered so far, that is what led police to the charges that have been proffered,” she added.
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