The results of the autopsy indicate that the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta died after being slit by the young Spanish Daniel Sancho, as assured by the number two of the Thai police, Surachate Hakparn, in charge of the investigation of the crime committed on the 2nd. “We already have the definitive results of the autopsy. They first quarreled, according to evidence at the (crime) scene. Daniel punched him, then the doctor (Arrieta) fell and hit his head against the sink, but he did not die at that moment, but when (Sancho) began to cut his throat, according to forensics,” said the deputy director. from the Thai police.
Sancho, son and grandson of the Spanish actors Rodolfo Sancho and Sancho Gracia, respectively, has been in provisional detention in the Koh Samui prison, in southern Thailand, since the 7th, after confessing to Arrieta’s murder. On Tuesday, Thai police concluded at a press conference that the surgeon’s murder was premeditated and that Sancho had stabbed him before dismembering him. “We have consulted with the prosecutor about some of the evidence and it is strong enough to charge him with premeditated murder, which carries the death penalty,” Hakparn said then. Although it is not uncommon for Thai justice to impose the maximum sentence, in most cases it is not executed and is commuted to life imprisonment. The investigators have to deliver their report to the Prosecutor’s Office, which decides the type of criminal offense for which he will be accused during the trial.
“The case has been resolved quickly. Now the police are preparing the final report to send it to the Prosecutor’s Office before this Friday,” said the officer supervising the investigation. During the interview, the number two in the Thai police denied that he offered Sancho “incentives” to make him confess, something that, according to him, is prohibited by law in his country. According to the opinion of this media agent, who usually deals with the most publicized cases and in which foreigners are involved, “the only reason” why Sancho confessed is because he did not want to face the death penalty. “As in many countries, when someone confesses, the court can reduce the death sentence to life imprisonment. However, the police will not get involved in this aspect. We will not prepare any report to request a reduced sentence. We haven’t and we can’t,” Hakparn added.
In the press call on Tuesday, in which they closed the case, they recognized that there were still some fringes in the investigation, such as the results of the autopsy or the analysis of the mobile messages between Arrieta and Sancho. On Friday, Suteep Chadakarn, an agent involved in the investigation, assured that they were still looking for the remains of the victim’s body and that 8 of the 17 parts in which it was initially dismembered had already been found. The torso of the deceased has not yet been found, according to police information provided to the press at the time. According to this agent, they still had to take statements from more witnesses.
The mobile: “A love affair”
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The number two of the Thai police maintains that the “motivation for the murder was the love affair” that Sancho, 29, and Arrieta, 44, who met a year ago through Instagram, maintained. “Daniel wanted to start a new life with his girlfriend, but Dr. Edwin (a plastic surgeon by profession) threatened him that if they broke up, he would share intimate photos,” he added. The policeman pointed out that a psychiatric evaluation of Sancho’s condition had not been carried out when the murder took place: “It is difficult to determine during an investigation how Daniel felt before what happened.” The young man, a chef by profession, acknowledged in statements to Efe that he had murdered and dismembered Edwin Arrieta because he claimed that he had him “in a glass cage” and harassed him to be his partner.
The police do not consider that any other person has participated in the crime, since they have not found any traces of DNA or images in the surrounding cameras, nor that his death was accidental. They have images of Sancho buying various cleaning supplies in supermarkets on the island, such as gloves or garbage bags, knives and a saw before Arrieta died, and a purchase receipt for those products. Last week they also displayed on an electronic tablet photos of a victim’s T-shirt with knife-sized cuts across the chest.
Sancho and Arrieta had met on the 2nd in Koh Phangan, a very touristy island known for hosting the full moon party, in which the beaches are crowded with people celebrating with music until dawn. The next day, several local media reported that a garbage collector had found a severed pelvis and intestines in a bag of fertilizers in a landfill on the island. Hours later, more human remains were found in the same dump, including part of Arrieta’s lower extremities. Other remains of the deceased have been found in the sea, where the police are still searching.
The researchers exhibited last week a series of explanatory panels about their work. They featured frames from security cameras from supermarkets in the area in which a person with characteristics similar to Daniel Sancho appeared; There were also photographs in the vacation apartment where the crime occurred, such as a bathroom, a kitchen or the inside of a closet, where there was a safe in which the police say they intervened $ 9,000. In one of them, Daniel Sancho can be seen squatting with his back turned, while another person from the research team, wearing a red shirt, appears lying on the ground. In another, the researcher is standing, dressed and in a shower.
Silvia Bronchalo, the defendant’s mother, visited her son in Thai prison on Friday. “No one is prepared to receive news like this,” she maintained on the way out. “Daniel is much better, he is calm, they are treating him very well, and well, just hope that everything is resolved very calmly,” added Bronchalo. Sancho finished the 10-day isolation period stipulated by the covid-19 protocol on Thursday, and since then he has been able to receive a daily visit of about 15 minutes.
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