By Wendy Anders

In the wake of the murder of five youth in Liberia, capital of Costa Rica’s northern Guanacaste province, early last Thursday morning, police have developed a sketch of the man they believe to be the suspected killer.

Police received helpful information from an informal taxi driver who transported a man Thursday morning who he described as, “very nervous and appeared to be fleeing the country,” to the station where buses depart for the Nicaraguan border, reported Costa Rica’s daily newspaper La Prensa Libre.

In the meantime, Henning Jensen, president of the University of Costa Rica, where three of the murdered students studied at the Liberia campus, ordered a five-day mourning period at the institution.

“We are deeply concerned and dismayed by the violence that these young people have been victims of. We deplore how Costa Rican society does not have sufficient sensitivity to offer greater protection to a youth that, by one means or another, is being the primary object of violence, whether it comes from organized crime or from that which occurs on our roads,” said Jensen.

The University of Costa Rica is also organizing a march against violence in memory of the students to be held at 10:00 am on Wednesday, January 25 near Liberia’s central park, to be followed by a memorial service.

Police have also attempted to interview the sole eyewitness of the gruesome 5-person murder, which has been described in local media as a “beheading”. The 14-year-old survivor, identified as Nayeli Yessenia Hernandez Vargas, was found struggling between life and death from a neck wound when a neighbor arrived at the crime scene around 6:30 a.m. Thursday. The girl was immediately transferred to the local hospital where she was successfully operated on, reported La Prensa Libre; she remains in a state of psychological shock.

Police confirmed the identity of the five deceased as Costa Ricans Dayana Martínez Romero, Stephanie Hernández García and Massiel Serrano Méndez, all women, and two young men, Costa Rican Joseph Briones Solís, 22, and Ariel Vargas Condega, a Nicaraguan with Costa Rican nationality.

Martínez, Hernández and Briones, from Upala, were students at the UCR-Liberia campus, and have lived in Liberia for the last four years for their studies.

Costa Rica’s Diario Extra also reported they were able to confirm that the victims had all been at Liberia’s Edgardo Baltodano stadium Wednesday night to watch the local team play Alajuela’s Liga Deportiva soccer team.

Neighbors of the La Victoria neighborhood where the murder occurred described the students to Diario Extra as calm and focused students who have been living in the house for some time.

Costa Rica’s judicial investigative police, OIJ, said they have received at least 40 different tips as to the possible whereabouts of the suspect since they published his sketch, but the search is still on.