Costa Rica’s Minister of Public Security, Gustao Mata announced shortly before 5:30 p.m. on Friday that authorities in Nicaragua have apprehended Adrián Salmerón, the Nicaraguan man suspected of murdering 57-year-old US expat, Dirk Beauchamp, his 38-year-old Costa Rican wife and three children over the Valentine’s Day weekend in the small community of Matapalo de Santa Cruz, in Costa Rica’s northwestern province of Guanacaste.

According to Minister Mata, Nicaragua’s ambassador to Costa Rica, Javier Sancho, informed Costa Rican authorities of the arrest shortly after 5 p.m. on Friday.

Salmerón is suspected of the brutal murders of 57-year-old US expat, Dirk Beauchamp, his 38-year-old Costa Rican wife, Yemmi Duran, and three children aged 13, 8, and 6 over Valentine’s Day weekend.

Salmerón and the deceased mother of 7 children were reportedly involved in an extramarital affair.

Police on Tuesday morning discovered the entire family of five brutally murdered in their home, which it was recently revealed, they shared with the suspect.

Authorities said that the victims were likely killed lately Saturday evening or Sunday morning.

All of the victims had suffered multiple stab wounds and blows from a machete, officials said.

Two other children, girls aged 3 years and a 7-month-old infant were also harmed in the attack.  Both are expected to survive but the 3-year-old girl has been paralyzed in half her body after suffering a stab wound to the head, officials reported Wednesday morning.

 

Murder suspect lived with victims in violent home

Neighbors and those close to the family told the daily La Nacion on Tuesday that the suspect and the female victim were involved in an extramarital affair, and that the suspect actually lived together with the woman in a makeshift dwelling behind the family home.

According to the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ), the suspect is in fact the father of one of the woman’s younger children.

Those interviewed said that Beauchamp suffered constant abuse from his Costa Rican wife, and had even filed domestic violence charges against the woman.

Neighbors and those close to the family said that the woman would routinely assault her husband, who was apparently in ill health, and steal cash from the man.

Residents said that Beauchamp arrived in the area about 13 years ago, and appeared to be well off financially. However, according to neighbors, the man’s wife began to blow through the family’s finances, spending large sums of money in area bars and nightclubs.

Residents say that the woman and her lover, now suspected of killing the family, would often times return to the home drunk and assault Beauchamp.

Meanwhile, according to one neighbor, the family’s financial situation deteriorated so badly that non-profit groups were helping to provide the family with food and school supplies for their children.

A brother of the deceased woman told tabloid daily Diario Extra on Wednesday that his sister met her husband while working as a prostitute at The Hotel Del Rey in San Jose’s red light district.  The couple had been married about 10 years, according to reports late Wednesday.

Editor’s note: This is a breaking and developing news story, and will be updated as additional information becomes available.  Stay tuned to The Costa Rica Star for the latest.