‘For sure it shows murder’
CANADIAN WOMAN’S BODY DISCOVERED IN BELIZE
Police in Belize confirm a Canadian woman a nd her American boyfriend were murdered shortly before they were scheduled to leave the Central American country where they were wintering.
The police theory is that it was a robbery gone wrong.
The bodies of Francesca Matus, 52, of Keswick, Ont., and Drew DeVoursney, 36, from Georgia, were found Monday afternoon near a sugar cane field in the Corozal district near Belize’s northern border with Mexico.
“For sure it shows murder, this is a homicide investigation,” said a police official in Belize who did not wish to have his name published.
“Both bodies were found together in some bushes and were starting to decompose by the time they were found.” He said the bodies were on top of each other.
“We believe they had a lot of money in their possession and someone tried to rob them.”
Decomposition made it difficult to determine the cause of death without an autopsy, the police officer said; there were obvious signs of trauma. Local news source Breaking Belize News reports the cause was strangulation.
DeVoursney’s mother said the American embassy told her that the pair was found with duct tape wrapped around their wrists. Bound wrists suggest an abduction or an attempt to get them to do something or go somewhere against their will.
DeVoursney was a former U. S. Marine and his close friend and fellow veteran expressed dismay that he would be killed in this manner.
“Someone had killed a United States Marine, my brother in arms, who survived Fallujah, Iraq and Afghanistan,” Brandon Barfield wrote on a GoFundMe campaign, first established to help the search f or a missing couple but now dedicated to bringing DeVoursney’s body back to the United States.
DeVoursney had been living in Corozal since December, Barfield said.
“It breaks my heart knowing that Drew and I have survived so many near death situations and laughed about it, and now I have to bring his body home.
“Today is the day where I demand answers to so many questions all of us have about this whole mysterious abduction and their senseless deaths.”
Barfield and DeVoursney’s brother were en route to Bel- ize on Tuesday.
Matus had also been living in Belize since December, said her cousin Ivana Pucci, enjoying life on her waterfront property. She used to spend winters in the central American country and return to the Toronto area for summer and fall to be with her mother and her two twin sons, aged 22, Pucci said.
“She loved it there and felt safe,” Pucci said. “She did tell us it was lawless there, but she felt safe in her little community.”
Her boys, brother and mother are grieving together in the Toronto area.
Matus grew up in Sault Ste. Marie as part a sprawling Italian- Canadian family, Pucci said. She moved to Toronto after college and became a mortgage broker, which she still did for half of the year. She loved the water and boating in Belize, she said.
“She was 52 in a 35- yearold body,” Pucci said. “She really was such a beautiful person — both inside and out — and she did not deserve this,” Pucci said. “Nobody does.”
Pucci didn’t know much about Matus’s relationship with DeVoursney, but said she appeared to be happy.
DeVoursney and Matus had been dating for a few months before they were last seen last Tuesday night leaving Scotty’s Bar and Grill in Corozal.
Friends says Matus was supposed to fly back to Toronto the next day, but she wasn’t at home when a friend arrived to drive her to the airport.
She was reported missing to police.
A large contingent of Canadian and American expats had been scouring the area in the past week in a desperate search to find the couple. They met up at Scotty’s bar and then fanned out.
“They had a lot of friends here, they were very popular,” said Colin McGowan, one of the owners of Scotty’s.
Both Matus and DeVoursney frequented the establishment and made friends easily. McGowan said friends spontaneously started searching places they thought something could have happened to them, but the search was disorganized. He stepped in to regiment the efforts.
He said about 100 people, both expats and locals, volunteered to help both search for the couple and spread the word to local residents. Searchers traced various routes they might have gone after leaving the bar, McGowan said.
News of the discovery has left them in “shock and disbelief,” he said.
The car they were driving, a white 1998 Rodeo Isuzu SUV, was found on Sunday.
The bodies were found between Chan Chen village and Patchakan village on a small road leading to a sugar cane field, about six kilometres from where they were last seen.
Canada’s diplomatic corps is monitoring the case.
“Our thoughts are with the loved ones of the Canadian citizen who passed away in Belize. Consular services are being provided to the family during this difficult time. Canadian consular officials continue to liaise with local authorities to gather additional information,” said Austin Jean, a spokesman with Global Affairs Canada.
No further information was available out of privacy concerns, Jean said.