Accompanied by two brothers and his mother, fugitive Victor Urbina surrendered himself to police Oct. 26, a little more than two weeks after he and seven others escaped from La Reforma, Costa Rica’s largest prison, located northwest of San José in Alajuela.
Urbina is the fifth of the eight escapees to be back in police custody, while a sixth was killed in a shootout with police Oct. 24. Two others remain at large, and an older woman in the Southern Zone reported that a man fitting one of the fugitives’ descriptions entered her home and raped her.
Urbina, who was sentenced to 27 years in jail for rape and aggravated robbery, gave himself up at the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ) office in Tres Ríos, east of San José.
Three other convicts were captured at a residential home in Guácimo, on the Caribbean slope, after police surrounded the home at approximately 1 a.m. Oct. 24 and exchanged gunfire with the fugitives, killing Freddy García, 33. Johel Guillermo Araya, 48, Alberto Martínez, 38, and Johnny Rodríguez, 46, were all arrested (TT, Oct. 27).
Days earlier, police arrested fugitive Roberto Clark, 21, as he was drinking at Carnival, in the Caribbean port city of Limón.
All the recaptured prisoners could get an additional two years for escaping and face up to 35 years more for the murder of Marco Tulio Prado, a prison guard shot and killed by the convicts during their escape (TT, Oct. 13).
Still on the loose are Douglas Quirós, 48, sentenced to 141 years reduced to 45 years for aggravated robbery, aggravated unlawful imprisonment, aggravated rape and other crimes; and Rafael Ángel “Rafa Loco” Herrera, 53, sentenced to 45 years for rape, robbery, assault and illegally carrying a weapon.
A 59-year-old woman in Río Claro, Golfito, in the Southern Zone, told OIJ agents that “Rafa Loco” entered her home Oct. 26, threatened her with a gun and raped her, the daily La Nación reported. Officials believe Herrera is in the area, where he has friends and relatives.
