Almost a full week after 17-year-old Alwin Marin Jr. left his Belize City home for a planned fishing trip with a friend, what began as a frantic search for a missing teen ended in unspeakable tragedy on April 16, 2026. Marin’s decomposing body was discovered by his own mother, Patricia Cardinez, in the isolated, bush-covered Dykes area of Belize City, confirming the worst fear she had carried since her son’s disappearance.
Marin was last seen leaving his Jane Usher Boulevard neighborhood alongside 17-year-old Jaheil Westby. When neither teen returned home after four days, their families filed missing person reports with local authorities. Westby’s bullet-riddled body was recovered in the same region last Friday, launching an immediate, widespread search for Marin that Cardinez never paused, even amid widespread speculation that Marin may have been involved in Westby’s death.
In an interview with News Five reporter Isani Cayetano, Cardinez described her relentless search through dense, remote brush that ended with the devastating find she had dreaded. “I feel good that I find my son, that I searched. I search eena di bush. I sih jankro, and I search til I find my son,” Cardinez said, speaking in Belizean Kriol. “I hurt fi know that I find my son way da back yah soh cause my son da wah lee bwai weh usually goh and cohn home back. But, at the same time, too, how my son dead now, soh who kill my son?”
Like Westby, Alwin died a violent death far from his neighborhood, leading senior law enforcement officials to conclude the two killings are connected. ACP Hilberto Romero, head of Belize’s National Crime Investigation Branch, confirmed that investigators have been tracking the linked case from the day Westby’s body was recovered. “The body has been retrieved and taken to the forensic laboratory where it awaits a post mortem examination,” Romero told reporters. “This report was made from last week Friday and from then searches were being conducted in the area and the body of Jaheil Westby was found on Friday. They were together, so it’s case we were following up on from the day.”
Romero added that evidence at the two discovery sites indicates the teens fled their attacker in separate directions, explaining why Marin’s body was found much farther from Westby’s. This new observation has forced investigators to discard earlier theories that suggested Marin was involved in Westby’s killing—a conclusion Cardinez pushed back on forcefully even before her son’s body was found.
“Di policeman dehn weh gaan da my house and di search fi my son, how I wah di hide my son when I still yet deh pan di news and still yet di search fi my son. Now I find my son now, soh who kill my son?” Cardinez said.
Cardinez alleges the double murder is tied to a long-simmering public nuisance that has increasingly turned violent across Belize: stolen and stray horses. She says the two teens were together on a horse when they were attacked, a motive that aligns with growing community frustration over the persistent problem of unauthorized horse grazing and horse theft in the area.
Now that both bodies have been recovered, investigators are reworking their case strategy to pursue new leads tied to the possible horse-related motive, as they work to identify and arrest those responsible for the killings. Cardinez has called for immediate action from authorities, urging police to hold all involved in her son’s killing accountable.