Murders and standoff keep police busy

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The murder of a university mathematics student early Saturday shocked police. Someone came into her home and beat her in the head with a hammer, officials said.

The killing was one of four weekend murders, including the death of a hotel owner in downtown San José Friday. That assailant took another merchant hostage but was gunned down by police after a two-hour standoff.

The dead student is Susan Bryan González, 18, who was living in Bataán de Limón with her husband, who found her dead in her bed about 3 a.m. Later Saturday the Judicial Investigating Organization arrested an 18-year-old man in Pacuare de Pérez Zeledón on the other side of the country. He was a worker on the property of the woman’s father-in-law. She was a student at Universidad Latina in Limón.

The hostage standoff in the downtown started when a man fatally stabbed Mario Cortés, the co-owner of the Hotel la Flora on Avenida 8 between calles 2 and 4. The murderer later was identified as Lorenzo Gílberth Thompson Shang, about 30, of Panamá, a man with a lengthy police record.

Thompson fled from the hotel to a nearby shop where he put a knife to the throat of owner Manuel Rojas and dragged him into a bathroom where he resisted negotiation efforts by police for nearly two hours.

All this happened around midday about two blocks south of Parque Central.

Thompson ended up stabbing two police officers, but his hostage was freed when police gunned down the murderer.

Another murder took place in San Isidro about 9:25 p.m. Friday. Two men in a car beat to death Fabio Vargas Vargas, 55, with a pipe at the entrance to his home.

Sunday about 4 a.m. the body of a 24-year-old woman, Ana Gabriela Sanjur Gamboa, was found with a fatal bullet in her chest outside a bar.

Also early Sunday a 24-year-old Alajuela man Gerado González Porras died near his home when a group of men accosted him. The specifics of this murder were not available late Sunday.

... the point of this is?

The point of this, I gather, is that Costa Rica is even safer on any given night than New York or Miami or Boston, etc.

I think that you're right and I have to say it is not a fear of being murdered that would keep me away from NY, Miami, Boston etc. In fact tourists often stick to 'touristy' areas which are often the safest parts of many countries. Ok there's a risk of pickpockets and minor crime, but violence is the rare exception. I know lots of people who travel often and few of them have much in the way of trouble.

Sure there are a few countries and areas to avoid, but that's just commonsense. Don't let fear prevent you from seeing the world.

Pandachris, you are absolutely right. As a former Editor-in-Chief of Let's Go (way back in 1974), I've been backpacking the globe since about 1967 and have NEVER had an incident of violence directed against me and only a few problems with minor theft or attempted theft. The simple fact is that if you show common sense, act in a rational manner and stay (reasonably) unimpaired, there is absolutely no reason not to travel almost anywhere in the world (with the exceptions, just now, of Iraq, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan and a bare handful of other places).
Carpe diem!