Daniel Sancho and Edwin Arrieta: The place the 2 met up within the final six months | Worldwide

Speak exhibits in Spain broadcast a clip of Daniel Sancho breaking away from his police escort for a second — a digression within the reconstruction of the crime — and wetting his toes on the shore of the Thai island of Ko Pha-ngan, staring blankly into the horizon. “What’s he pondering?” the presenters wonders. The identical query was being requested by an viewers comprising half of Spain and a part of Colombia, which has spent the previous week gripped by the information of the homicide and dismemberment of the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta, 44, by the hands of the Spanish chef Daniel Sancho, 29.

Within the media, right here is loads of hypothesis relating to the motives of the confessed assassin. Sancho’s model of what occurred and the Thai police investigation coincide on the fundamental information of the case. The chef — who has the trimmings of an influencer, the son and grandson of well-known actors, Rodolfo Sancho and Sancho Gracia — met the physician a yr in the past on Instagram, the place they shared a ardour for gastronomy and journey. After a number of conferences, which based on Sancho’s confession concerned friendship, intercourse and cash, the 2 males met on the paradisiacal island in Thailand to benefit from the full moon get together. Sancho arrived a few days earlier and purchased gloves, plastic baggage, a knife, scouring pads and bleach. On Wednesday, August 2, after choosing up Arrieta on his bike, strolling across the island and eating collectively, he murdered the Colombian. Sancho alleges that he killed the surgeon throughout a combat after he threatened to submit sexual photos if Sancho left him. Police have additionally found alleged loss of life threats from the sufferer on the killer’s cellphone. Sancho claimed he felt like a “hostage” to Arrieta’s obsession.

Following the homicide, the Spaniard spent three hours dismembering Arrieta’s corpse. He cleaned the bungalow and dumped baggage of human stays in a landfill and on the backside of the ocean, for which he unexpectedly bought a kayak for $1,000. He attended the total moon get together with two women after which headed to the police station to report his good friend’s disappearance, pressured by the fixed calls from Arrieta’s sister and his good friend. They didn’t know Sancho, that they had contacted him by social media, involved that Edwin, who routinely spoke a number of occasions a day along with his household, had not been in contact for a very long time. By then, the police had already discovered the surgeon’s pelvis in a trash bag. Sancho was subsequently arrested on the police station.

Those that knew Sancho, from tennis mates to enterprise companions and individuals who attended the identical non-public faculty in Madrid, have spoken anonymously to the media in regards to the assassin. “I can’t see him doing something like that, Daniel is all about kindness,” an in depth good friend stated in an interview with the Spanish TV station Telecinco. “He was narcissistic and smug, you might inform he sort of did what he wished, that he wasn’t going to face any penalties,” an previous schoolmate advised one other channel somberly. Sancho’s household has employed Carmen Balfagón, a media lawyer who usually seems on night applications, as spokesperson. “In any legal act there’s a motive, which is what must be clarified right here,” she defined by cellphone.

Among the media consideration and the leaking of quite a few particulars and pictures have prompted voices to query the rigorousness of the investigation by the Thai police. Nonetheless, Spanish officers accustomed to working with colleagues from different international locations consider that the Thai investigations have been “very thorough” in view of what has been reported within the media. “They scoured the video surveillance cameras and situated photos of the detainee shopping for the instruments he used for the crime and others with the sufferer earlier than murdering him. They discovered organic stays in locations like drains, they usually even obtained the confession by the alleged perpetrator, who initially denied the information and tried to deceive them,” these police sources level out.

Daniel Sancho first sought to change into an expert tennis participant after which a chef. Solely two weeks earlier than his arrest, his father proudly spoke in ¡Hola! journal about his son’s initiatives: “He’s a chef and has a catering enterprise and a restaurant.” Nonetheless, the younger man’s title doesn’t seem within the data as a enterprise associate in both of the 2 ventures talked about by his father (La Bohème and Boogie Burgers), each of that are registered in an opulent constructing on Calle de Zurbano in Madrid, the place nobody solutions the cellphone. Barely a month and a half after its opening, Boogie Burgers in Malasaña, a stylish neighborhood of Madrid, has been closed and on its Instagram the house owners posted: “Our restaurant has been affected due to an incident past the corporate’s management. Sadly, the media publishes unverified information, which damages our picture and repute.”

Sancho was a fan of Muay Thai — a Thai martial artwork — had a cooking channel on YouTube with a small following and on his social media channels he posted photos of himself in costly eating places in Madrid, events in Ibiza and journeys to the Riviera Maya, Peru, Lanzarote and Thailand. These photos have revealed lots of the conferences he had with Arrieta during the last six months. In January, based on Semana journal, they met in Madrid for dinner at Umiko, a restaurant awarded two Repsol suns (an accolade in recognition of the most effective eating places within the nation). In February, they met once more at an equestrian heart in La Granja (Segovia) and, based on Espejo Público (Antena 3), they slept in a close-by resort. On the finish of July, they traveled to Ibiza with the chef’s mates (who, based on experiences on TV, have been unaware of the 2’s intimate relationship). In his final submit on Instagram, Sancho seems on a ship, at evening, with a drink in his hand. One final episode of a life constructed on social media that disappeared, like his account, the day actual life started.

In the meantime, Arrieta’s life started within the humble northern Colombian city of Lorica, with a inhabitants of 112,000, in a strongly Catholic family. “Since he was a baby, he had two goals: to change into a physician and to see the world,” says Darlin Arrieta, his older sister. Edwin managed to satisfy each of his goals. He skilled in Argentina, the place he specialised in cosmetic surgery, and went on to change into a profitable physician who spent half the month in Chile and the opposite half in Colombia. In each international locations he had an workplace and on the Chilean Fb web page there are nonetheless openings within the August agenda for liposculpture and abdominoplasty for about $5,000.

He visited Spain “about 5 occasions within the final 10 months,” based on his good friend Silvio Suárez, who stated he deliberate to maneuver to the nation: “He stated he was engaged on validating his paperwork and was planning to arrange enterprise in Madrid.” His mates describe him as “sociable and pleasant.” The proper host, well mannered, courteous and respectful, who performed polo and recited the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy every single day at 3 p.m.

One of many large mysteries surrounding the case is why Arrieta traveled to Thailand with $80,000 in money, which was discovered by the police on the scene of the crime. In the meantime, his household, which is ready for the repatriation of the physique, needs the self-confessed assassin to be tried in Thailand. “It’s unbiased terrain and would supply extra ensures,” says the household’s lawyer, Miguel González Sánchez. In response to Amnesty Worldwide, the Thai judiciary has issued almost 800 loss of life sentences since 2010. Of those, 104 have been in 2022. Of this quantity, in the identical interval it has solely executed three, the final one was in 2018. Arrieta’s household is asking for a sentence that may serve for example, although they don’t consider within the loss of life penalty as a punishment. “Solely God offers and takes away life,” stated Arrieta’s sister Darling.

With reporting by Jacobo García, Óscar López-Fonseca and Ana María Sanhueza.

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