The criminal court of Liberia, Costa Rica, sentenced this Monday a doctor accused of killing his wife on July 15, 2020 to 30 years in prison for the crime of femicide by injection. According to the statements of the Judiciary, he would have administered doses of benzodiazepines and diphenhydramine (both sedatives) pretending to be a remedy for digestion. Raquel Arroyo Aguilar, 41, died of “mixed poisoning, edema and pulmonary hemorrhage” in front of her two children, who were 12 and 14 years old at the time. The victim wanted a divorce due to “emotional and financial abuse.”
“The accused (identified by the surname Carmona Jaén), with the aim of benefiting from the policy that the offended person maintained on a house, whose first beneficiary was him, planned the death of the victim, whereby the man provided intravenous drugs to treat colitis to the victim and in this way gain her trust and so that she would not suspect his intention to end her life,” the Judiciary said. The planning of the murder is what led judges to apply almost the maximum femicide crime in the country, which ranges from 18 to 35 years. This conviction can be appealed. Until the final sentence, the accused will be in pre-trial detention.
The Prosecutor’s Office ascertained during the trials that in mid-2020 the woman had expressed her intention to divorce “to break the cycle of violence suffered” and that when she realized this she deliberately decided to take her own life. “The couple’s relationship was characterized by the emotional and financial abuse that he exercised on the woman,” they added.
When the paramedics arrived at Arroyo’s home, they immediately suspected that it could be a femicide and activated a scientific investigation protocol through which they ended up ascertaining intoxication as the cause of death.
“Years of feminist awareness”
For the judge and professor of the penal science department of the State Distance University of Costa Rica, Zhuyem Molina, this rapid response is the fruit of “years and years” of feminist awareness among the country’s health and judicial professionals. “This implies that technical and scientific attention was paid and that they got rid of gender prejudices (of accepting, for example, the partner’s version). If they had started from prejudices, the woman would have been buried and we would never have known what happened to her,” he explains on the phone. “This case shows that more and more officers have a pro-victim view, until proven otherwise.”
Although the Costa Rican feminist movement celebrates this exemplary condemnation, part of the group like Shi Alarcón-Zamora, teacherx feminist from the Technological Institute of Costa Rica, regrets that the presence of the State does not arrive before their deaths. “It seems that prison is not the place where men learn to stop being violent towards women. There is a need for public prevention policies and purple points in the country with qualified personnel, but for this Government the protection of women is not central”, he criticizes on the phone.
Every day, 106 women request protection measures in the Central American country, according to 2023 data from the Observatory on gender violence against women and access to justice. However, the experts interviewed denounce that these requests clash with a slow judicial system that often leaves the attackers unpunished. Sexist violence, cuts to social investments and the misogynistic speeches of the Rodrigo Chaves administration, they explain, endanger the results achieved.
Three weeks ago, in fact, the country further limited the right to abortion (which is already one of the most conservative countries in the region). From now on, abortion can be carried out without criminal sanctions only if the mother’s life is in danger. It is no longer sufficient that there is a serious danger to the mother’s health, but there must be a risk to her life.
Three years ago, the president publicly apologized for sexual harassment allegations against him when he worked at the World Bank. “If we have a president who speaks badly of women and has obscene behavior with them… it is normal for the rest of the men in the country to believe they have a license to kill,” says Alarcón-Zamora.
The Observatory on gender violence against women in the judiciary so far counts a total of 32 feminicides in 2025, while in 2024 there were 40; in 2023, 34 were registered; in 2022 the number was 26; In 2021 there were 20 and in 2020 there were 30. Even the latest known cases in Costa Rica show arduous murder planning and extreme brutality in the execution and disappearance of the bodies.
Molina insists we must ban the idea that men who kill their partners or ex-partners are “crazy,” “were drunk” or “monsters.” The planning of these murders is the clearest example of the fact that the unequivocal intention of the attackers is to end the lives of these women and not an “outburst” of jealousy. “Gender stereotypes cloud research,” he summarizes.
According to official data and non-governmental organisations, collected by EFE, in 2024 at least 1,118 women were killed in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama. That’s three women a day.
