Adrían Salmerón was purportedly the boyfriend of Jessica Durán, 38, of Costa Rica. Durán was killed along with her U.S. husband, Dirk Beauchamp, 56, and three of their children, ages 12, 8 and 6, on Valentine’s Day in their home in Matapalo, Guanacaste.
Costa Rican Alejandro Jiménez, known as 'El Palidejo,' had hired a group of thugs to murder a Nicaraguan businessman traveling with Cabral, but Cabral was killed instead.
Authorities say they may have captured the serial killer terrorizing drug-addicted prostitutes in San José's slums. A suspect has been tied to three of the bodies through DNA evidence.
Terence Valentine’s death sentence has tested the limits of Costa Rica's influence in the United States during the last decade as the country’s embassy works to commute his sentence in accordance with Costa Rica’s long-standing disapproval of the death penalty.
On Monday morning, a three-judge panel in Pérez Zeledón acquitted U.S. citizen Ann Patton of charges of murdering her husband, wealthy financier John Bender, in 2010.
Five years and now on her third trial for murder, Patton has never wavered in proclaiming her innocence. She said that this trial would finally be the one to absolve her of any wrongdoing.
Three of the suspects were acquitted of all charges on Jan. 26. The remaining four defendants were found guilty of raping and robbing a Costa Rican couple and their young nephews nearly two weeks before Mora’s murder.
A Nicaraguan man was convicted on Monday of killing a 37-year-old U.S. missionary from Lynnfield, Mass., last April, the Nicaraguan daily La Prensa reported. Fernando Antonio Aburto Reyes, 35, murdered Karen Colclough during the course of an aggravated robbery and rape, a Nicaraguan court ruled.
The isthmus connecting North and South America continues to lead the world in murder rates, with four of the top five rates in the world in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Belize.
It was the latest in a wave of shootings that sees about 17 people gunned down each day in Guatemala, amid violent turf battles between warring druglords.
