On Friday past, the murder trial of a well known figure, Mark Vega ended in an acquittal when a jury of 12 persons found the 31-year-old not guilty of the June 13, 2002 robbery that turned into murder of a Mennonitte family in Trinidad village in the Orange Walk district. At that time Susan and Enrique Pethkau were flagged down by three men and robbed at gunpoint. Both were shot and left to die, only Susan succumbed to her injuries.
On Friday, a jury of 12, went into the deliberating room at 3.45 p.m., and within 5 hours, at 8.45 p.m., arrived at a not guilty verdict, setting Vega free of the murder.
On Monday January 19, Vega’s attorney, Bryan Neal told us that the prosecution’s only witness, who was the deceased’s husband who is now also dead and was unable to make it to the trial to testify. While the DPP’s prosecution did get his statement admitted into evidence for the jurors to consider, at the end of the 5 hours deliberation, they were unsure of Vega’s guilt and ended up acquitting him. The jurors were privileged to an identification parade statement that Pethkau had participated in where he positively identified Vega as one of the three men who robbed them leading to the murder of his wife. That too, it appears, did not budge the jurors and he is now free of murder.
While Vega is free of that murder, according to Neal, the DPP’s office will be indicting him for Enrique’s Pethkau attempted murder since he allegedly also tried to kill him that night back in 2002.
Enrique Pethkau is now dead as he died in a traffic accident in 2009, 7 years after his wife was killed.  Pethkau was available only for the first trial back in 2005, when Vega’s case concluded in a hung jury, at the time a mistrial was announced and he a new trial was ordered.
On June 13, 2002, Enrique and his wife were driving in their van on the highway in Trinidad Village when a group of three men tried to flag them down. At first, Enrique refused to stop for the men. He had gone to his farm to feed his cows when he passed the men again later that day. On his way back, the men managed to stop Enrique who was driving the van with his wife next to him. That’s when he came face to face with his attackers, one who placed a gun in his face and ordered them to go into the back of the van and their attackers drove them to a secluded area. There his wife was shot in the ear and abdomen. Enrique was also shot, but luckily he lived to tell the tale. His wife died on the spot.
In an identification parade, Enrique Pethkau had positively identified Vega as one of the three men who attacked him.
The prosecution in the case against Vega had called 9 witnesses to the stand. The trial lasted for some weeks in the Orange Walk Supreme Court before Justice Herbert Lord.
Vega was represented by attorney, Bryan Neal. In his 2005 trial, Vega was represented by Leo Bradley. In his defense, he claimed he was nowhere near the murder scene.
