The first alert to the police station in one of the Koh Phangan sub-districts came at 12:00 on 3 August. Municipal waste collectors had found human remains inside a sack of fertilizers in the incineration plant dumpster. They were remains of a man: sliced ??intestines, parts of the buttocks, and the penis. A day later, while workers were rummaging through the entire garbage dump looking for more evidence, they discovered parts of a right leg inside a black plastic bag. Also a T-shirt, shorts and underwear.
Investigators found a shopping tag on the bag that led them to a store on Koh Phangan, a highly touristic island in southeastern Thailand. There they reviewed the closed circuit cameras and discovered that a foreigner, a young boy with long blonde hair, had bought large plastic bags, a meat knife, rubber gloves, detergent, a stainless steel sponge and wool.
After the purchase, the cameras stationed outside the premises captured how the boy left on a small rented motorcycle, which is the usual way tourists choose to move around this small island that is half the size of Ávila. Thanks to the license plate, the agents found the store that owned the vehicle. There they were given the documentation where the name of the boy who had rented the motorcycle came from: Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, 29, the same person who on Thursday the 3rd had gone to a police station to report the disappearance of a Colombian man with whom he was spending stay on the island.
When Sancho went to file the disappearance complaint, the Thai media had already reported that human remains had been found in the dump. The local newspapers began to publish that it was a murderer who had dismembered his victim. And names started coming out. The dead man was Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a 44-year-old surgeon who turned out to be Sancho’s companion.
The Spaniard had arrived in Koh Phangan on July 31, shortly before Arrieta, who reportedly made a reservation at a hotel next to the Thong Nai Pan beach, in the northwest of the island. Sancho, for his part, had another room reserved in his name at another remote resort, in Salad Beach, on the east coast, next to one of the quietest beaches in the area, taking into account that both were in that tourist paradise to attend to the famous full moon party, when DJs take over the beaches and play music all night long.
The police, through the island’s CCTV cameras, tracked the latest movements of the victim, whom Sancho picked up at the port (Koh Phangan is only accessible by boat) on the 2nd at 3:00 p.m. That day, the Spaniard and Arrieta were eating and traveling on a motorcycle together around the island. In the video images, it can be seen that the Colombian doctor is wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, the same clothes that were found in the garbage bag. Then they went together to the Salad Beach hotel, and there the trail of Arrieta was lost.
When the Spaniard became the main suspect, the news came out of the Thai borders with a media incentive in Spain that captured even more attention: the boy with the blonde hair works as a chef in Madrid, has a YouTube channel and is the son of of the popular actor Rodolfo Sancho, who would have quickly caught a plane to Thailand to see first-hand the situation in which his son finds himself.
When the agents connected the dots by analyzing the images from the cameras, they questioned Sancho. He initially denied any involvement in the murder. Later, after the second search of the dumpster and the Salad Beach room, where they found traces of blood, hair and grease in the pipes, the actor’s son, according to the Thai authorities, confessed to the crime.
The investigators say that Sancho, who is in police custody at the moment and will go to court on Monday, explained to them that he took Arrieta to his room and that, in a fit of jealousy, he hit him, with the bad luck that The Colombian fell and hit his head on the edge of the bathtub.
Later, trying to cover up the event, always according to the same police sources, Sancho “cut the body into 14 pieces” and distributed some remains in the bags that he threw into the garbage can, while others he put them in a travel bag that he threw into the sea.
On Sunday, Sancho accompanied the Thai agents to various points on the island to try to reconstruct the crime. Later, as reported by Efe, the detainee was taken back to the police station for a meeting with senior police officers.
The Bangkok Post newspaper also reported that a kayak had been found on Salat beach which is believed to have been used by the Spaniard to throw parts of Arrieta’s body into the sea.
Two women who run a shop where they rent kayaks explained that Sancho tried to rent one at night and they initially refused, claiming that it was dangerous to use it at that time. But they finally ended up selling it when the Spaniard offered them $1,000 for the boat.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
