A 22-year-old woman suspected of killing American businessman Marc Walter Fleming in Playas del Coco will remain behind bars for at least the next year while prosecutors build their case, after a criminal court in Liberia ordered her held in pretrial detention yesterday. The Public Prosecutor’s Office said the Liberia Criminal Court granted the measure at the request of the Liberia Deputy Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspect, identified only by her last name, Ortiz, is under investigation for aggravated homicide, an offense that carries a possible sentence of up to 35 years in prison in Costa Rica. Pretrial detention is a precautionary measure and not a finding of guilt. It allows investigators to keep a suspect in custody while evidence is gathered, typically when a court considers there is a risk of flight or of interference with the investigation.
The ruling came three days after agents from the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) arrested Ortiz on Tuesday at a residential complex in San Felipe de Alajuelita, south of San José. She had been sought since October 16, when officers raided a home in La Capri de Desamparados but did not find her.
Fleming was found dead on September 27 inside his apartment in a condominium tower in Sardinal de Carrillo, in the Playas del Coco area of Guanacaste. According to the OIJ, security cameras recorded him arriving at the complex with a young woman and, about two hours later, the woman leaving alone on foot through the main gate.
Investigators allege that Fleming was struck repeatedly in the head with the glass jar of a blender. According to prosecutors, investigators consider Ortiz the last person known to have been with him before his death. Authorities have not announced a motive. The OIJ has said three Rolex watches, each estimated by investigators to be worth more than $25,000, are missing from the apartment, along with several of Fleming’s bank cards. Investigators have been tracing purchases allegedly made with those cards at businesses in Playas del Coco, Playa Flamingo and Abangares after his death.
A second suspect, a woman with the last name Zeledón, was detained on October 16 in San Miguel de Desamparados. Authorities suspect she helped Ortiz leave Guanacaste for the San José area after the killing. The same Liberia court previously ordered her held for three months, and investigators are examining whether both women allegedly used the victim’s cards.
Fleming, who had worked as a senior executive in the metals industry in California, had bought the condominium in Playas del Coco earlier this year. Security footage connected to the case circulated widely on social media in the weeks after his death, and the OIJ released photographs of Ortiz and asked the public for help locating her.
OIJ officials have credited tips from the public, along with intelligence work by the agency’s Homicide Section and its Liberia regional office, with leading agents to the suspect. The one-year detention gives prosecutors time to analyze security recordings, financial transactions and forensic evidence before deciding whether to formally accuse either woman. Neither suspect has been convicted of any crime in connection with Fleming’s death, and both are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
