Youth Held, 2 Men Sought in Killing of Women in Costa Rica

A teenage boy was in custody Monday and authorities were seeking two men in the slayings of two U.S. women in Costa Rica earlier this month, officials said.

Authorities said a 16-year-old Costa Rican male, who was not identified, allegedly fired one of two guns used in the shootings of Emily Howell of Lexington, Ky., and Emily Eagen of Ann Arbor, Mich., both 19.

Their bodies were found on the side of a highway March 13 near the Caribbean coastal town of Puerto Viejo. They had been shot in the head.

Judicial Police Director Jorge Rojas told reporters that the suspect in custody wrecked the victims’ rented sport-utility vehicle after the shootings.

Acquaintances of the suspect told police that he later gave them the .380-caliber handgun that police allege was used in Howell’s slaying. A second gun of the same caliber was used to kill Eagen but has not been recovered, Rojas said.

Officials recovered the gun that killed Howell last week and arrested the suspect Saturday night in Sixaola, a town on the border with Panama, Rojas said.

The suspect was also identified by two witnesses who claimed that he forced them at gunpoint to burn the sport-utility vehicle.

Authorities said the other suspects, a Costa Rican and a Nicaraguan, would be arrested soon.

Rojas said it appeared that the women had given a ride to the three suspects.

“Everything indicates they wanted to steal the vehicle and that’s why they killed them,” Rojas said. He said the suspects might have been under the influence of drugs.

Howell was a second-year student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She was working on a photography project in Costa Rica as part of the school’s cooperative education program. Eagen had withdrawn from the school in August, college officials said.

The two had been living for several months in San Jose, capital of this Central American nation. Costa Rica is a popular tourist destination and relatively safe by Latin American standards.