In a landmark ruling delivered on October 23, 2026, by Justice Candace Nanton at a Belize court, four out of five San Pedro men facing charges connected to a brutal 2021 fatal attack on a group of local fishermen at sea have been found culpable, with two defendants handed murder convictions. The 2021 incident unfolded on the morning of October 2, when four brothers from San Pedro – Jerry Espat, Kirian Espat, Ricardo Santoya, and Luis Santoya – were engaged in conch fishing and diving roughly five miles south of Ambergris Caye, near Cangrejo Caye, when a group of assailants aboard two unmarked vessels ambushed their craft without warning. Prosecutors laid out evidence during the trial that the attackers approached from behind in a red and white boat at approximately 9:30 a.m., opening fire on the unsuspecting group. Court testimony confirmed that Delsin Paguada initiated the shooting, and the assailants chased the brothers’ vessel toward San Pedro while continuing to discharge their weapons, leaving one sibling with a gunshot wound to the foot. In the chaos, Jerry and Kirian Espat were thrown overboard. Kirian testified that Jerry was shot multiple times while in the water, and he himself narrowly escaped death by diving beneath the surface; when he resurfaced, the attackers attempted to drag him onto their boat and hacked at him with a machete, fleeing the scene only when a third watercraft approached the area. Jerry’s lifeless body was discovered the following day near a mangrove cluster, and while Kirian survived the immediate assault, he passed away roughly six months later from complications of “dry lungs” caused by water inhalation during the attack. Though his subsequent death was linked directly to the ambush, the original charges against the defendants only included attempted murder for Kirian, and his pre-death sworn statement identifying the attackers was accepted as admissible evidence by the court. The verdict found Gabriel Villafranco and Carlos Salazar guilty of the full count of murder for Jerry Espat’s death, as well as the attempted murder of Kirian Espat. Pedro Tun and Delsin Paguada were convicted on two counts of attempted murder targeting Ricardo and Luis Santoya. The fifth defendant, Sergio Tun – Pedro Tun’s brother – was acquitted of all charges relating to the attempted murders of the Santoya brothers, as Justice Nanton ruled that the single witness identification presented by the prosecution was insufficient to confirm his presence on the alleged red attack boat, making him the only one of the five accused to walk free. All four convicted individuals have been transferred to Belize Central Prison to await their sentencing hearing, which is scheduled to take place on December 2, 2026. Justice Nanton formally rejected alibi testimonies presented by the four guilty men’s defence teams, which had claimed they were not at the scene of the assault at the time of the attack. The Espat family, who had spent years advocating for accountability for their loved ones, saw the ruling as a critical step toward long-awaited closure after years of waiting for formal judicial resolution for the 2021 maritime violence.