Authorities in western Belize have launched an official investigation into the first of a string of deadly weekend traffic incidents, after a 30-year-old local security guard was found dead next to his destroyed motorcycle off a major highway.
According to official statements from the San Ignacio Police Department, first responders were dispatched to the Kontiki area of the George Price Highway, near the 72-mile marker, shortly after 6:45 a.m. on Friday, June 5 following a report of a crash site spotted off the roadway.
Upon arrival, officers confirmed the presence of an adult male’s body and a heavily damaged motorcycle, later identified as belonging to Geromey Chuc, a resident of Benque Viejo Town.
“On Friday fifth June at around six forty-five AM, police in Kontiki were advised that the body of a male person and an extensively damaged motorcycle were observed off road in the vicinity of mile seventy-two on the George Price Highway,” explained Assistant Superintendent of Police Stacy Smith, the department’s Staff Officer, in an official briefing. “The officers responded where they were able to confirm this report and subsequently learned the identity of the deceased male person to be thirty-year-old Jerome Chuc, a Belizean security guard of Benque Viejo Town. The scene was processed as a part of the ongoing investigation into this incident.”
Based on initial evidence collected at the crash site, police preliminary findings suggest Chuc lost control of his two-wheeled vehicle while traveling along the highway, causing him to veer off the paved roadway and suffer fatal trauma in the impact.
Chuc’s death marks the opening fatality in a sequence of deadly traffic accidents that occurred across the region over the following weekend, with the San Ignacio Police Department continuing to process evidence and build out a full timeline of the crash to confirm the exact circumstances that led to the incident.
This report is adapted from a transcribed broadcast of the original evening television newscast.