Two men have been arrested in the shooting death of a LSU nursing student who was inadvertently caught in their crossfire in San Pedro, Belize, the police commissioner said Saturday.

The suspects, who are brothers, were to be booked with murder of tourist J’Bria Bowens and possession of guns to carry out illegal activity, Commissioner Chester Williams said. 7 News Belize identified them as Delson and Tionne Paguada.

San Pedro is a town on Ambergris Caye, a Caribbean Sea island popular with tourists about 13 miles off the Belize mainland. Bowens, 23, was there celebrating her father’s birthday. She was sitting on a golf cart outside a nightclub when the Paguadas started shooting Friday night, police said.

“The tourist was not the intended target,” Williams said. “It just happened that she was in the line of fire of these two factions.”

Bowens was from Indianapolis. She graduated from Xavier University in 2021, according to her Facebook. Her mother said Saturday that her family was too devastated to speak.

___

(c)2023 The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

Visit The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La. at www.theadvocate.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.