American tourist slain on sailboat in Venezuela

By Melissa Bryant
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

~~Adz:Right~~ CARACAS, Venezuela – VENEZUELAN police announced Monday (Nov. 10) that an American tourist was shot and killed, and a friend wounded, in what is assumed by authorities to be a robbery aboard a sailboat off the nation’s coast.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the slain American was identified as 55-year-old Kenneth Dale Peters and the wounded friend ad 63-year-old Stephen Davis.

Police officials reported that Peters was shot by armed men who boarded his sailboat to rob him and his passengers on Sunday (Nov. 9) night.

Regional Police Chief Gustavo Palacios said that Peters apparently tried to defend himself with a gun and wounded one of the attackers.

The assailants are still at large; however, prosecutors have detained a suspect in the nearby town of Arapito who has yet to be formally charged. It is unclear whether intruders stole anything from the boat.

Peters was visiting Venezuela with his wife on a tourist trip. His sailboat entitled ‘Chill’ was anchored off a small island in Mochima, a national park along Venezuela's north-eastern coast. He and Davis, who is recovering in a nearby hospital, had planned to leave in separate boats that night to return to the United States.

Authorities are making arrangements with the family to return Peters’ body to the United States. This marks the second tourist murder in Venezuela in two months, as a French tourist was killed on September 15 aboard a sailboat off Vargas state, near Caracas.