On October 23, 2026, a Belize court delivered a long-awaited verdict for a brutal 2021 open-sea attack that turned a routine recreational fishing excursion into a fatal tragedy, following months of rigorous evidence review by Justice Candace Nanton. Heavily armed police escorted five defendants into the courtroom amid tight security, with uniformed officers deployed across the perimeter of the courthouse as the judge read out her 70-page detailed ruling. The 2021 incident unfolded roughly 20 minutes off the coast of San Pedro near the Congrejo coastal zone, when a red-and-white vessel carrying the group of accused men approached a small boat carrying four fishermen, the Santoya brothers. Without warning, the attackers opened fire, forcing two of the Santoya siblings to flee toward San Pedro while being continuously shot at, and leaving two other men stranded in the open water. A second vessel soon arrived at the scene, where its occupants opened fire on the stranded pair, fatally wounding Jerry Espat. His brother Kirian Espat narrowly escaped death by repeatedly submerging himself under the water to avoid gunfire, fending off attempts by the attackers to drag him onto their boat, and suffering machete wounds in the process. Kirian survived the immediate attack but passed away six months later, leaving a sworn, detailed statement for law enforcement that identified Gabriel Villafranco and Carlos Salazar as key perpetrators of the violence, a document the court formally accepted as admissible evidence. All five defendants had presented alibi witnesses to argue they were not present at the coastal attack site on the day of the incident, but Justice Nanton rejected the defensive claims for four of the accused: convicting Villafranco and Salazar of the first-degree murder of Jerry Espat and the attempted murder of Kirian Espat, while finding Pedro Tun and Delsin Paguada guilty of the attempted murder of Ricardo and Luis Santoya. The fifth defendant, Sergio Tun, was fully acquitted of all attempted murder charges after the judge ruled that the only single eyewitness identification linking him to the red attack vessel was too uncorroborated to meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The four convicted men have been remanded to Belize Central Prison, where they will remain in custody ahead of upcoming mitigation hearings and formal sentencing scheduled for a future court date.