The body of a woman was found buried in San Antonio, Escazu, on the same property “Villa Le Mas” where Venezuelan/American tourist Carla Stefaniak, who went missing last week, was staying.

The Costa Rica Judiciary Police (OIJ) conducted a search Monday, December 3rd, in the room where the 36 year old Venezuelan, d who resides legally in Florida, USA, was last seen along with the surrounding areas.

It was in the early hours of the afternoon when agents with dogs from the K9 unit found the half-buried body of a woman.

“This Monday we were carrying out a search in the area where according to the information we had, this person had last been seen. We first searched the apartment where she spent the night, and after running some tests we came upon biological fluids compatible with blood, these will be checked and compared”, explained Walter Espinoza, Director of OIJ, who was also quick to clarify that for now there is no confirmation on whether or not the body found corresponds to Carla Stefaniak.

“The body found was in a stage of decomposition, but according to the preliminary observation by investigators it corresponds to the body of a woman. We cannot affirm that it corresponds to the body of Carla Stefaniak as we first need it to be identified by her family, we need to perform the autopsy and carry out all the proper procedures to confirm or discard that the remains correspond to the missing tourist”, concluded Espinoza.

OIJ has been investigating the case of the missing woman since November 28th, when the family of the Venezuelan woman reported her disappearance.

Stefaniak arrived to Costa Rica, November 22, apparently in the company of her friend and sister-in-law April Antonieta Burton, they visited Manuel Antonio in Quepos and La Fortuna in San Carlos; Burton took a flight back to Florida on November 27, while Stefaniak stayed the night at Villa Le Mas, she had arranged the lodging through AirBnB; she was supposed to board a flight back to Florida on the 28th but she never arrived at the airport, the flight was scheduled to depart at 1:30 p.m.

According to Burton, she last heard of Stefaniak at around 8 p.m. on November 27th, when she told her it was raining crazy and the power had gone out.

The guard at Villa Le Mas, stated that the tourist had left the property at around 5 a.m., however, an Uber driver showed up at the property at 8:30 a.m. to pick her up, a guard shift change had taken place, and the new guard told the driver the woman had already left the property since that was the information he had received from his coworker.

The first security officer remains in custody of OIJ while the case continues under investigation.

Just a few weeks back, also in the area of San Antonio de Escazu, the dismembered body of Stephannye Paola Castro Mora was discovered by a dog that found one of her arms.