#CostaRica Investigation underway into the brutal murder of a young lesbian

The dismembered body of Stephanie Paola Castro, a 28-year-old lesbian woman, was found in a rural area of Escazú, about 15 kilometers west of San José. No arrests have been made so far.

November 16, 2018

On Wednesday, November 7, a dog was seen walking with a human arm in its mouth down a street in the rural town of Bebedero de Escazú, located about 15 kilometers west of San José. The dog's owner alerted 911. When police searched the area, they found the torso, both legs, and the head separated from the body. The other arm has not yet been located. The body belonged to Stephanie Paola Castro, a 28-year-old lesbian woman. No arrests have been made so far.

Stephanie was nicknamed Tete. She grew up in the town of Las Vegas, in Puntarenas Sur. She was the eldest of three siblings, who, along with their mother, remember her as a cheerful and sociable person, as they told local television channels off-camera.

“She was a very humble girl. She never disrespected anyone. Very affectionate and respectful,” said a neighbor who had known her since she was a child.

The director of the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ) of Costa Rica told the media that the young woman had been murdered between three and four days before her body was found.

For his part, Marco Carrión, head of the Homicide Section, said that everything indicates the dismembered body was dumped at that location, suggesting the woman was not killed there. The investigator told a press conference that the investigation is focused on determining where and why she was killed. “We still don't have a clear motive,” he said. He denied, as reported in some media outlets, that the killers had dressed or changed her clothes: “Nothing leads us to believe the murder was due to her lifestyle. We rule that out because the evidence doesn't point to it.”

Marco Carrió, head of homicides.

The body is still being analyzed by forensic pathologists. So far, it has not been determined whether she had any other injuries besides those resulting from dismemberment. It is also unknown whether she was killed by one person or several.

They are asking for hate crimes to be incorporated into the penal code.

In Costa Rica, hatred based on a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is not considered an aggravating factor in homicides. “Those of us who are activists have been demanding this for several years. Here, these crimes have always been treated as crimes of passion or simply referred to as simple murder. Many hate crimes have been perpetrated against our community, but they are given a different name, made invisible, and go unpunished,” Natasha Jiménez Mata, a trans and intersex activist and member of Mulabi, a Latin American organization focused on sexualities and rights, told Presentes.

Hate crimes occur when a person attacks another motivated solely by their membership in a particular social group, based on their age, sex, gender, religion, race, ethnicity, socio-economic level, nationality, ideology or party affiliation, disability, or sexual orientation.

The activist said the fear is that there will be an escalation of crimes against LGBT people. “During the February and March elections, we activists suffered all kinds of violence from supporters of the conservative candidate Fabricio Alvarado. They felt they had social permission to attack us. We demand that this crime not go unpunished and that it lead to the establishment of the legal definition of hate crime.”

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