First Murder Victim of 2025 is Easy-Going Fisherman

The first murder of 2025 happened offshore, claiming the life of fifty-nine-year-old fisherman Godfrey Hyde Junior from Belize City. Hyde was supposed to return home for his birthday at the end of November. When he left on the sixteenth of that month, his family had no idea it would be the last time they’d see him alive. On Saturday morning, Hyde was found shot to death at a fishing camp on the Turneffe Atolls. The Belize Coast Guard was called to the scene and secured it for the police, who arrived later. News Five’s Marion Ali has more on this tragic and unsettling homicide for Hyde’s family.

 

Voice of: Josephine Neal, Daughter of Deceased

“I hope whatever dehn gone for dehn get, because I know he not mi wa fight, you know. He mi wa give it willingly, even if da something weh probably find, he mi wa give it up. He not gwein hold on to something that doesn’t fit him. He may give it up. So, the reason weh gone kill ah, only he know, maybe there’s more to it. Who knows? Maybe he find something. Maybe he see something, nobody know.”

 

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

Josephine Neal shared with News Five that her family is devastated and confused about what could have led to the murder of her father, fifty-nine-year-old Godfrey Hyde, a caretaker and fisherman from Belize City. She recalled that ever since she was a little girl, he would go away for several days and always return home. The last time he was in Belize City, it was to bury a son who had passed away from illness. He had promised to return for his birthday at the end of November, but that day came and went without any word from him.

 

Voice of: Josephine Neal

“He was supposed to come out for his birthday, whether it be the end of November, the 30th. But for some strange reason, I couldn’t get to him at no given time. I don’t know if that’s because he never had signal, because they have parts of the islands where you have to go certain spots to get the signal. So I don’t know if that was the case at the time. Because I did call her for her birthday, but didn’t get a response.”

 

Police are still trying to figure out the motive behind the first murder of 2025 and can’t yet say if anything was stolen from the fishing camp. What they do know is that the body was discovered by someone who had come to deliver food.

 

A.C.P Hilberto Romero, Regional Commander, Eastern Division

“Information is that the caretaker of the island was there for a while and someone brought supplies to him, after which the body was found.”

 

Reporter

“Is it possible that this was a robbery of some kind?”

 

A.C.P Hilberto Romero

“We do not know at this time. He was there alone at the island and his body was found there.”

 

Isani Cayetano

“Okay, so I understand that it’s the Coast Guard who initially responded to the information, correct?”

 

 

 

A.C.P Hilberto Romero

“Correct. Yes, the person that took the supplies contacted the Coast Guard, who made checks, they found the body and they called for the police.”

 

Rear Admiral Elton Bennett told News Five that the Belize Coast Guard was contacted about the discovery around eleven o’clock on Saturday morning.

 

Rear Admiral Elton Bennett, Commandant, Belize Coast Guard

“Sometime on Saturday around 11 a.m., our forward operating base out at Calabash Caye on Turneffe Atoll reported that they discovered the lifeless body of a fisherman that we later learned to be Mr. Godfrey Hyde. We know him to be a fisherman out at Turneffe Atoll. The patrol visited that area, discovered the body and we called in police and forensics to come out to, to process the scene.”

 

 

 

 

Bennett mentioned that the area where Hyde was found isn’t typically known for illicit activity and isn’t usually targeted for searches. However, there is a spot several miles north of the crime scene that patrols often frequent due to its reputation for illegal activities.

 

Rear Admiral Elton Bennett

“We would transit this camp in order to get to that location, but we have never. identify this as a, as a target era for us. So we do not know at this time why any individual would go to that location and commit such a crime. A little bit farther north is an area where there are different characters and yes, drug trafficking is. It is a concern for us in that area and that’s perhaps maybe 10 or 15 miles north from that location.”

 

As Hyde’s family prepares to lay him to rest, his daughter Josephine shared that she had a bad feeling right after Christmas and confided in her sister about it. Little did she know, the news of her dad’s death would come less than two weeks later.

 

Voice of: Josephine Neal

“We the clean up and so forth and I the run joke and I the tell ah, I say, I di smell Dads, I di smell ah. Ih say, gial stop di talk fool. I say, but literally I di smell ah, meaning that I know something wrong, yoh understand me? And this da after the Christmas.”

 

 

Marion Ali for News Five.

 

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