Man fatally stabs 18-year-old with weapon taken from him in Chomes, Costa Rica.
NEWS:
A man fatally stabbed an 18-year-old in a public street in Chomes, Puntarenas province, Costa Rica, after taking a sharp weapon the teenager had been carrying, according to security footage that captured the killing from more than one angle.
The attack occurred on the morning of April 29, 2026, in the El Muelle area, outside a commercial establishment. Published accounts placed the confrontation between 00:9:20 and 9:32 a.m. Emergency-call times also varied, with separate reports listing approximately 00:9:21 and 9:41 a.m. Because of those discrepancies, the most reliable description is that the stabbing occurred shortly after 00:9:20 a.m.
The business was later described as a fish market. At least four men are visible in the camera field before the violence begins, and separate recordings captured the encounter from different positions.
The victim was identified as Víctor Julio Zúñiga Patiño. The man detained after the stabbing was identified by the surnames Martínez García. Reports listed him as either 40 or 41 years old, placing him in his early 40s at the time. Subsequent judicial reporting said the two men were cousins.
Security footage records Zúñiga approaching Martínez García in the street. Zúñiga is shirtless, wearing shorts and a cap, and a pointed weapon can be seen concealed between his waistband and body. Several other men are visible near the location. The recording does not establish why Zúñiga approached his cousin or what happened before the filmed encounter.
As Zúñiga closes the distance, Martínez García takes the weapon from him. He then drives it repeatedly into Zúñiga’s body as the teenager attempts to move away. Men nearby move toward the confrontation, and one appears to throw an object in the attacker’s direction. The man carrying the weapon then runs from the scene as others move after him.
The footage shows Zúñiga severely wounded on the road. He manages to rise briefly before collapsing again. Paramedics who reached the location found him without signs of life and declared him dead at the scene.
Investigators reported stab wounds on the right and left sides of the torso, the chest and the back. Police secured the area while judicial agents conducted the body recovery and collected evidence. Zúñiga’s remains were transferred to the forensic complex for an autopsy.
Published accounts used different terms for the weapon, including knife, dagger and an ice-pick-type implement. The recordings clearly show a small pointed object being taken from Zúñiga and used to stab him, but the available images do not provide enough detail to settle its precise classification.
The additional camera angle materially changed the initial public account of the homicide. An early preliminary report said Zúñiga arrived at the location, encountered Martínez García and was attacked, apparently without any words being exchanged. That first description did not include the fact that Zúñiga had arrived carrying the sharp weapon later used against him.
The later footage does not establish a motive, the nature of any dispute between the cousins or whether threats had been made before the recorded encounter. It also does not determine the legal significance of Martínez García taking the weapon and continuing to stab Zúñiga. Those questions require evidence beyond the visible sequence, including witness statements, forensic findings and the judicial case file.
After the stabbing, Martínez García left the area on foot. Police officers detained him approximately 40 minutes later, reportedly about 400 meters from the scene. He was turned over to judicial investigators, who referred the case to prosecutors with a report on the arrest and preliminary evidence.
A court subsequently ordered Martínez García held for 15 days in preventive detention. The case was reported as being processed through Costa Rica’s flagrancy procedure, a system used when a suspect is detained during or shortly after an alleged crime.
Preventive detention is a temporary procedural measure, not a criminal conviction. The order kept Martínez García in custody as the suspect in Zúñiga’s killing while investigators and prosecutors continued assembling the evidence.
The video directly establishes the central physical sequence: Zúñiga approaches while carrying the pointed weapon, Martínez García takes it, repeatedly stabs him and leaves. It does not prove why the confrontation began, what either man intended before contact or whether the force used after the weapon changed hands was legally justified.
No publicly confirmed motive was identified in the available updates. The last concrete judicial development located was the 15-day preventive detention order issued on April 30, one day after the killing. No later public update located by June 15, 2026, identified a final charging decision, trial date, release order or resolution of the case.
