A jury of nine women and three men found 22-year-old Jesse James Ochoa not guilty of murder on Monday, December 20. The jury deliberated for four hours and 14 minutes before they found Ochoa not guilty of the crime.
Ochoa had been accused of killing truck driver Emigidio Gomez on 16 June 2008. At the time three men had pulled over a truck being driven by Gomez and accompanied by Cornelius Schmidt. The men were transporting a bulldozer on the truck. The truck was pulled over by the three men, one of whom pretended to be a police officer who told Gomez and Schmidt that they would be taken to the Belmopan police station. Instead, the men were taken on a dirt road off the Coastal Highway where Schmidt was shot three times. Gomez was tortured, shot and left hanging from his belt from a tree.
During the court proceedings, Ochoa gave a statement from the dock claiming that another man, Juan Aldana was the one who posed as the police officer and forced Gomez and Schmidt into his car and took them to the Coastal Road. Ochoa had maintained that he was never on the Coastal Road when Aldana committed the crime but instead stayed on the Western Highway.
Aldana is still wanted in connection with the crime. The second man identified as Wesley Emmanuel had been charged along with Ochoa but was set free after a nolle prosequi was entered because investigating officer at the time Sergeant Sinquest Martinez was not available to testify. Emmanuel has since been re-arrested and re-indicted on murder charges.
