Mother's Love Brings Justice for Daughter Killed in Costa Rica
The night Shannon Martin died, she danced.

Her killers saw her in the crowded disco in Golfito, in the southern zone of Costa Rica. They followed her from the bar, attacked her, dragged her to an out-of-the-way spot and tried to rape her. The University of Kansas student died fighting them, said her mother, Jeanette Stauffer of Topeka.

"Three people heard her scream,'' Stauffer said, "and they just dismissed it. No one went to her rescue.''

At a news conference Tuesday at Washburn University and in interviews this week, Stauffer recounted her struggle to find out what happened May 13, 2001, and to bring her daughter's killers to justice. The turning point came last summer, she said, when a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and a court interpreter from Topeka became involved.

Over more than two years, Stauffer made 11 trips to Costa Rica, hired attorneys and investigators and appealed to U.S. and Costa Rican political leaders. She accumulated $100,000 in debt. But she got some satisfaction shortly before Thanksgiving when a three-judge panel in Costa Rica found a man and a woman guilty of stabbing her daughter.

"You do what you have to do,'' Stauffer said. "Shannon deserved to have the murder solved.''

Martin was a biology student doing research in Golfito on an unusual fern. She had a promising future, those who knew her at KU said. She was to graduate the month she died. During commencement, KU flashed Martin's picture on the big screen at Memorial Stadium. She received a degree posthumously.

On Nov. 24, the judges in Golfito found Kattia Cruz, 32, and Luis Alberto Castro, 38, guilty of "simple murder.'' They each were sentenced to 15 years in prison. A second man, Rafael Zumbado Quesada, 52, was acquitted but is being detained in another murder investigation.

Cruz and Castro plan to appeal, as Costa Rican law allows, Stauffer said. Stauffer also plans to appeal. She wants the two to serve 30-year terms, the maximum sentence that could have been imposed if they had been found guilty of the more serious charge of "qualified'' or premeditated murder.

When the investigation began, Stauffer said, she believed it was proceeding appropriately. Eventually, however, she said she learned that it was stymied by corruption and a drug culture that permeated the small Pacific coastal town.

Witnesses were afraid to come forward, she said. They received death threats or did not trust police. Evidence that could have been collected early on was not properly handled. She did not find out until late in the process that, under Costa Rican law, she could be a party to the investigation.

Last spring, she said,: "I realized no one would be held accountable if I didn't step up to the plate.''

She asked the FBI to step in, she said, but it wouldn't.

So she approached KBI Special Agent Larry Thomas of Topeka. A friend recommended an interpreter: Jesse Ybarra, who works on a contract basis for state and federal courts in Topeka.

The two went to Golfito this summer. They interviewed more than 30 witnesses, three times as many as the prosecutor in Golfito had interviewed over two years, Stauffer said. Witnesses who had been afraid to talk to police talked to Thomas and Ybarra.

"We treated them with respect and dignity,'' Ybarra said Tuesday. "The police had threatened them, put them in jail, broke down their doors. They (the police) are just not trusted.''

Particularly important, Ybarra said, was a statement from a maintenance man who had washed a taxi. The three charged in the murder were believed to have taken the taxi shortly after the murder.

The maintenance man said he found blood on the internal door handles and window crank, Ybarra said. Another witness came forward with a knife that he claimed was used in the murder.

The judges were persuaded primarily by circumstantial evidence, Thomas and Ybarra said. Forensic evidence was mishandled or, in the case of a pair of pants with blood on them, was being examined.

More charges could be filed if more evidence turns up, Thomas said.

Ybarra said they were not able to uncover evidence of a sexual assault. However, he said, he and Thomas think one of the men attempted to sexually assault Martin because the struggle was violent.

Martin was stabbed more than dozen times and robbed only of an earring. Her bloody purse was found next to her.

Stauffer said her daughter loved Golfito and felt at home there.

The night of the murder, she said, the restrooms in the Jurassic Bar were not working. Martin had drunk 1 1/2 beers in three hours, Stauffer said, and left alone to walk one block to use the restroom at the home of her host parents.

"We try to convince females they have as many rights as males, but when it comes to safety, they don't,'' she said. "She wanted to believe in humanity and that she would be safe, and it cost her her life.''

In her daughter's memory, Stauffer is setting up an English program at Costa Rica's Coast Guard. She said residents needed to learn English to get jobs because most of the jobs were in tourism.

The first class will begin Feb. 2; 60 people have signed up.

Stauffer said she thought of Shannon all the time, but the convictions have lifted some of the cloud over her. Her two other daughters, Staci and Sherri, greeted her at the airport on her return after the trial.

Together they celebrated Thanksgiving and her birthday on Friday.

"It was the first time I really could enjoy just being with my two other girls. We thought of Shannon, we burned a memorial candle and we talked about good times,'' Stauffer said. "But I was able to move on.''