Murders occur in Honduras with such frequency, as to make those sorry events quite commonplace. Finding reasons for this obvious fact is not difficult, and an almost non-functional judicial system must surely head the list. When ‘due process’ offers little or no hope for relief or retribution for the aggrieved party, sheer frustration often leads to tragic consequences. Even in the face of the most obvious, premeditated, cold-blooded murder, legal punishment is, at best, an uneven and highly arbitrary proposition.

Even after guilt is established and punishment has been judicially decreed, corruption on the part of those charged with operating the prisons regularly intervenes to effectively set the court ruling aside, in return for bribes, personal favors, or mere political connections.

In view of these realities, it is small wonder that while Honduras courts are much feared for their utter lack of predictability, they are neither trusted nor respected as even-handed dispensers of justice. In truth, some of the most heinous crimes, of both omission and commission, take place within the court system and are orchestrated and carried out by cabals of venal lawyers and sitting judges, themselves. Then, once a prisoner is remanded to the care and custody of the prison system, his/her fate depends more on individual ingenuity and influence, than on the terms of the sentence that was handed down. Honduras prisons tend to operate independently of the courts, as a shadowy world apart, as this murder and chain of events clearly demonstrates. (LDB)

A superficial examination of romantic activities on Roatan may convince the casual observer that such alliances are essentially mere arrangements of convenience, rather than deeply-felt affairs of the heart. While open swinging and swapping are still well outside the islanders' boundaries of permissible conduct, the incidence of pre- and post-marital adventuring is such as to make the faithful individual an object of some curiosity. However, under this patina of fickle behavior, some strong passions do flow - and on occasion produce dramas worthy of a latter-day Shakespeare.

Melville McNab was a thin, bird-like appearing individual; in his middle fifties, making boats and building houses for a living when I first met him, in 1970. He was a quiet man, an excellent craftsman, and the un-elected - but universally acknowledged head-man in the village of Oak Ridge. He ran surveys to settle boundary disputes; he was the arbiter of quarrels between neighbors and families; he catalyzed village effort to solve public problems, or accomplish public works.

All of this he did without benefit of official title, budget or administrative office space. His conferences regularly took place in his carpenter shop or under a boat shed. Once rendered, his dictum was immutable - to be honored both in spirit and the letter in which he laid it down.

In the characteristic island manner, "Uncle Mel" (as he was deferentially addressed by young and old alike) had, in his younger years, consorted with the local girls without regard to skin tone. Among his amorous companions, Merlee Cooper proved to be the obvious favorite. But, inasmuch as Merlee's father had been black, her mother white - and Merlee a product of a joining not sanctified by marriage vows - Uncle Mel never saw fit to propose marriage to her. However, their informal cohabitation persisted over some fifteen years.

Merlee never married, although Uncle Mel did marry at age 37. Said union lasted some ten years, and produced two sons, Ronald and Wayne.  His wife, Orva HydeMcNab, a product of Guanaja, eventually tired of   Melville's fiddle-footed inclinations, and called it quits in 1956.  Taking the boys with her, Orva departed Melville's bed and board for life in the United States.   Uncle Mel simply resumed his alliance with Merlee and life went on as usual.

About 1960, Uncle Mel had had reason to be in Puerto Cortes for several days, checking on some incoming ocean freight. On one fateful evening, he ventured into a local whorehouse and met a stunningly attractive woman who promptly moved all of the rest of the world's female population into the background. Suffice it to say that, after several return trips to cultivate the romance, Uncle Mel contrived to get Margarita to come to Roatan and live with him. When I first met the happy couple their arrangement had been going on for some eight or ten years - and was completely accepted by the entire village of Oak Ridge, as well as the length and breadth of the island of Roatan.

Even Merlee Cooper, who had been displaced by Margarita, maintained a perfectly friendly relationship with both Mel and Margarita. Since the McNab property joined Merlee's "Island Inn", a bucolic hostelry where I passed some time, I often observed Merlee and Margarita borrowing things back and forth and chatting at odd moments as neighbors have done forever.

The domestic role began to hang heavy on Margarita's hands after a couple of years, and Uncle Mel thoughtfully built her a saloon that became known around the bight as the "Blue Bar". The name was in acknowledgment of its paint job, I hasten to add, rather than its atmosphere. Indeed, it was a pleasant place, with a juke box, ample drinks and a friendly clientele. On Friday and Saturday nights in particular, most of the light-skinned adults from Oak Ridge and adjoining villages could be found there. Merlee was an occasional patron, along with everyone else.

One August, in the mid-1970's, Margarita decided to bring her thirteen-year old niece, Jenida, to Roatan for a holiday. The niece chose to bring her fourteen-year-old girl friend along. Jenida (the niece) and Irma (the friend) lived with Uncle Mel and Margarita, and helped out in the Blue Bar on busy nights. But this happy confraternity didn’t last long. In no time at all, trouble was afoot that would lead to foul and bloody murder.

One look at the nubile, sultry-eyed Irma, and Uncle Mel went into orbit! As weeks went by and the return of the girls to the mainland was delayed by one contrived means or another, the libidinous pot came to full boil.

One evening as a few early customers sat in the Blue Bar and chatted, a new arrival brought some interesting news.

"Hey, Margarita, he said with some degree of wonderment, "Do you know that Uncle Mel is getting married?

"It's about time," Margarita replied, obviously getting in on what what she thought was a joke..

"No sir" the man persisted. "His banns are posted on the Cabildo. He’s really getting married!"

Margarita laid her bar-towel down and studied the face of her informant for a trace of a smile. There was none.

"Who is he marrying? she asked quietly.

"Irma’s name is on the banns, along with Uncle Mel’s", the man replied.

The silence was viscous. The hum of the refrigerator seemed much too loud as everyone waited for the next reaction. Margarita turned to her niece who was working with her and told her to watch the bar. As she raised the gate at the end of the bar to leave, someone asked her, "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going home and kill the son-of-a-bitch", she replied, as she passed out the door and into the balmy tropical night.

While murder is all too commonplace in the so-called civilized world, it is most difficult to foresee such violence in the personalities of one's friends. No one really thought Margarita was going to go home and literally kill Melville McNab. Anything short of killing him, perhaps, and that he richly deserved. But not the ultimate deed. As a consequence, half an hour later, when boats began racing up and down the bight and converging at the McNab dock, the activity was attributed to everything except the actual cause.

As good as her word, Margarita had gone home and mixed up a dish pan full of lye-water. Then she sat down at the kitchen table to wait for Uncle Mel. She heard his boat pull up to the dock, heard his footsteps crunching on the coral-surfaced path, and up the back steps.

When the kitchen door opened, Margarita waited just long enough to make sure it was him, then threw the pan of lye-water into his face. The caustic seared him. He ran to the sink and began throwing water into his face to remove the fiery liquid that was cooking his eyes like a pair of eggs.

While bent over the sink, concentrating on his immediate problem, Mel never saw Margarita pick up a long thin bread knife off the table. He was totally unaware as she crossed the kitchen to his side. As he splashed water in his face and howled with pain, she reached under him and jerked her fist straight up. The knife entered Uncle Mel’s body about two inches below his breastbone and the tip emerged just to the right side of his spine and between a pair of thoracic vertebrae. She left it hanging there.

A neighbor, hearing the succession of screams, decided to investigate. As he charged up the back steps and into the McNab house, he found Margarita sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette and watching Uncle Mel kick his life away in an expanding pool of blood on the floor. Wisps of pale smoke drifted up as the lye ate away at his clothing.  The handle of the bread knife protruded from his belly like a big tie-pin.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I killed the son-of-a-bitch," Margarita replied.

Somebody notified the Commandante of the three-man uniformed constabulary force that is stationed in Oak Ridge. By the time he could get to the McNab house in a commandeered outboard skiff, Uncle Mel was very, very dead.

Relatives took charge of the body and the FUSEP soldiers took charge of Margarita. They loaded her into a boat, took her to Coxens Hole and put her in a jail cell. The following morning she was escorted down the hill and into the Court of Letters for a preliminary hearing.

As the Judge systematically talked her through the events leading up to and culminating in the murder, Margarita answered each question directly, in a matter-of-fact tone, without outward signs of either remorse or anger. Occasionally puffing on a cigarette -(they don't stand on formality in this venue) she went through the events of the previous evening like she was reading them off a menu. And then came the last question from the judge was, "Who killed E1 Senor McNab?"

"I killed the son-of-a-bitch", Margarita replied.

Under Honduran law, murder - unless it involves a government official - is handled like a case of assault and battery. The family of the deceased must hire a lawyer, produce witnesses, offer evidence and sue the culprit for capital murder. In this case it was not hard for the McNab family to get the conviction they sought. Especially, since Margarita once more sat in court and repeated almost verbatim all of the testimony she had given earlier. The court, in its infinite wisdom, saw fit to sentence her to fifteen years in prison. She was transported to La Ceiba to begin serving her sentence.

Two or three months after the trial, I was walking down the main street in La Ceiba, and whom do I see walking toward me? Margarita!

After a somewhat strained greeting, I asked her how it happened that she was not languishing behind those gray stone walls, where her crime and sweet justice had put her - for fifteen years, if my memory served me well.  She smiled thinly and rolled her eyes heavenward.

"The Commandante is my very good friend", she explained. "I help him and he helps me. I come out whenever I want to, but I have to get back before dark - unless I'm staying in the Commandante's house. – Hey, Mister Dee, buy me a drink?"

Merlee Cooper was one of the first people to get to the McNab house after the killing. This, since she lived right next door. Not more than seventy feet separated the two houses, so she heard the screams and immediately ran to help. After the body and Margarita had been removed, and the crowd began thinning out, she got a bucket of water and a mop and cleaned the blood off the floor. Then she went home.

Merlee neither ate food nor drank water or other fluids after that night. She was conspicuous by her absence at the funeral for her erstwhile sweetheart. After many days without nourishment or liquids she first became disoriented and then semi-comatose. Her friends became alarmed for her condition, and decided to take her to La Ceiba to the hospital.

Even under professiona1 urging, she still steadfastly refused to eat or drink. Her only intake was in the form of intravenous fluids - and it was not enough to reverse the situation. Merlee’s death occurred less than three weeks following Melville's. She was returned to Roatan and buried not far from Uncle Mel in the little village cemetery, up on the hill. To my knowledge no one ever mentioned the singular relationship of the two events. They didn't need to. Everyone in Oak Ridge and its environs understood. Outsiders didn’t have any need to understand.

While serving as the fuse on the romantic powder keg, Irma was guilty of no crime except that of being too young, too pretty, and perhaps too complaisant to a man almost four times her age. During the course of the investigation and subsequent trial, Irma was questioned on two or three occasions by the handsome young Commandante who had taken Margarita into custody. At the time, it looked like a rebound proposition - wherein Irma was just trying to fill the void and assuage the emotional wounds of the awful experience she had gone through.

But, whatever its underpinnings, attraction turned to affection, and affection gave way to love. Irma and the young Commandants were married some four months following Uncle Mel's funeral. In following days, when I went to the Cabildo (city hall) in Oak Ridge to pay taxes or take care of other official business, I almost always stopped into the office of the Municipal Judge. It seemed that we had been friends for a long time.

You see, Irma later became the Municipal Justice of the Peace. She presided over her mini-court with great dignity and more than a little compassion. She was older, of course, and after four babies, she had lost most of eye-catching curves and related features that had caused so much trouble in the past.

We never talked about "that night". But sometimes when she took my hand and squeezed it between hers, I know she had not forgotten. Nor would she ever. It was in her eyes, but being the brave lady she was, she kept it to herself.  Deep down inside.

I had occasion to be in the Coxens Hole Court of Letters executing some land documents. As I sat in the outer office waiting for my turn with the Judge, the court secretary, Anna Chavez, was going through the mail - opening letters with a long, thin knife that I thought looked familiar.

"Anna, you have a mean looking letter opener, I said by way of a conversational gambit.

"This isn't a letter opener, Mister Dee," she replied. "This is evidence".

"What kind of evidence?" I asked.

"This is the knife that killed Melville McNab," she replied, gripping it in her fist about the way I imagine Margarita had held it.

On my next trip to the mainland, I bought a nice desk set that included a pair of scissors and an ornamental letter opener, and all contained in a lovely tooled-leather scabbard. I later traded the desk set to Anna for the murder weapon.

Driven deeply into a mahogany beam, behind the bar at Spyglass Hill is a 1ong, thin bread knife. The handle has been taken off it, so it is no longer usable. Affixed lengthwise on its blade, is an identification label which reads: "The knife that killed Melville McNab.

It is hardly ever noticed. 

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NOTE:  I wish to acknowledge with thanks the direct information provided me by Ms. Margaret Hyde (niece of Orva McNab) and Wayne McNab (younger son of Melville and Orva Hyde McNab) and which has enabled me to correct some dates and data that were incorrectly set forth in the original posting of this account.  My apologies for the earlier inexactitudes.       (LDB)  4/5/00

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[Note:  This story is from my six-volume autobiography, which is an origninal work in progress, under the title "Yanqui".        Lorenzo Dee Belveal]

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