The engineer who worked aboard the same yacht as Paige Bell was formally indicted this month for her murder in the Bahamas. He has entered a not-guilty plea.
Brigido Munoz, a 39-year-old Mexican national and resident, appeared before the Supreme Court of the Bahamas on December 17. He remains in jail, pending another court appearance on January 21, 2026. A trial date will follow.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested Munoz and charged him with murder on July 9. This was six days after initially investigating an incident aboard the yacht Far From It, docked in Harbour Island. According to their report, a caller around 1 p.m. on July 3 requested officers come to the 141-footer (43-meter). Upon arrival, officers discovered 20-year-old Bell in the engine room, unresponsive and with noticeable injuries. A doctor pronounced her dead at the scene. The police report further indicated that Bell was missing for a short while prior to an unnamed person finding her in the engine room. Munoz was in the engine room as well, conscious and with what police suspected were self-inflicted wounds to his arms. The officers sent him for medical assistance.
Bahamian law didn’t require Munoz to enter a plea in court on July 9. However, the magistrate did order Munoz held without bail until a hearing in November. On November 21, Munoz reappeared in court, where he was served and signed a voluntary bill of indictment for Bell’s murder. In the Bahamas, a voluntary bill of indictment gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over a case. This therefore led to the December 17 Supreme Court appearance.
Prosecutors have not disclosed whether Munoz has a criminal history. Regardless, yacht crew and additional yachting professionals are vociferously calling for standard industry-wide background checks for crewmembers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that few yacht managers and crew recruiters regularly perform background checks. After Bell’s death, we contacted 19 companies providing yacht-management and crew-placement services, specifically asking them whether they research potential hires to this degree. Only three of the 19 companies replied on the record, with one of the three indicating it routinely conducts checks.
Calls for change in the industry are not new. Jessie Frost, the founder of the crew-recruitment agency Crewfolio, initiated a Change.org petition calling for mandatory criminal checks for crewmembers two years ago. Currently, it has more than 6,000 signatures, half of which have come in since Bell’s death. “Overall, while there are existing regulations and guidelines related to working at sea, there are currently no universal provisions related to background checks for seafarers internationally,” Frost says.
Once the petition reaches 10,000 signatures, Frost intends to present it to flag states, the ILO, and the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). “it’s about using existing systems that already work in other industries like aviation and commercial shipping,” she explains. “We’re calling for a renewable two-year background check certificate, treated just like an ENG1 or STCW.”