Police have arrested and charged 28-year-old Leroy Alexander Lorenzo, a native from the Corozal District for the Hopkins murder of the 50-year-old American National, Wendi Jane Dardano. Lorenzo was her boyfriend, and police believe that he stabbed her to death and stuffed her into a garbage bin in front of her home in Hopkins Village.
The cops say that at around 2:05 p.m. on Saturday, November 30th, Neisha Augustine, another resident of the village, reported to police that her friend, Wendy, wasn’t answering her cellular phone as she normally does. Augustine told officers that she was worried about her because the last time they spoke was on the previous day at around 6 p.m. Reports are that when Augustine called her phone, it was answered by a man who gave different accounts of her location, which sounded suspicious.
So, police started looking for Dardano, and when they visited her home, they encountered Lorenzo. The cops questioned him about her location, and they eventually detained him. The police went back and conducted a thorough search of her home and yard, and that’s when they discovered her lifeless body inside a garbage bin that was on the roadside in front of her house. The cops say that her body was being hidden under some trash and that she appeared to have suffered a stab wound to the chest. They retrieved her body, processed the scene for evidence, and transported her to the morgue.
The best information on her time in Belize is that she has been a nurse in the Stann Creek District for more than a year, and at the time of her death, she was employed at the Hopkins Clinic. There are reports that she leaves behind 4 sons who live in the US.
In the meantime, Leroy Lorenzo, the man police believed to be her killer, has been arrested and charged with murder. He will be arraigned in the Magistrate’s Court, and he will be remanded to the Belize Central Prison.
At this time, there is no known motive for Dardano’s killing, but there are reports that she may have suffered domestic abuse at the hands of Lorenzo, her boyfriend. Her close friend has told the press that some time ago she came to work with visible signs suggesting that she had been beaten. This friend said that she worriedly encouraged her to turn to the police, but she was adamant to keep quiet. Her reason was that she didn’t want anyone in her life.
