Murder by the sea

Eric Volz’s beautiful ex-girlfriend Doris had been murdered.

One of Doris’s friend’s, he says, called with the news.

Eric Volz: The tears start to pour and how can this be. It rocks the reality that you live in.

Eric had been preparing to move his magazine from Nicaragua to Costa Rica but when he got that call, he says, he told his colleagues he would not be leaving quite so soon after all.

He rented a car in Nicaragua’s capital Managua and three hours later, he encountered the dreadful scene in tiny San Juan: Doris - dead - in the back room of her fashion boutique.

Volz: The police had the door open. People could kind of see in the back and see maybe her feet in the back of the store.  And for decency, I was like, “Man, can’t you at least shut the door? 

Eric says he was told to stand on the street where a hushed crowd had gathered.

Tony D'Souza, writer: It was a really ominous mood.  And then I could see over the heads of people this little blue storefront.  And the police were coming in and out of it.

Tony D’Sousa is a young writer from Chicago.  He’d been enjoying some down time after completing an award winning novel when quite suddenly, this bizarre story began to unfold right in front of him.

D'Souza: I said to a guy right next to me, “What happened?”  And he said, “A girl raped and murdered.” 

Inside was the stuff of nightmares. The store upfront had been ransacked and robbed. Signs of a struggle led back through a living area and into the bedroom where police found the body. Doris had apparently been raped, strangled and her body hog-tied and exposed.

And her attacker - or attackers - didn’t even stop there.

D'Souza: They stuffed her mouth so full of paper and rags, that when they took that stuff out of her mouth and took pictures of her, it looked to me like her jaw had been broken. It was just a brutal crime.

Eric began to think about funeral arrangements.  He says he found himself involved in the family’s decision-making.

At the time, it seemed to some of Doris’s family that Eric was being a little hasty... even pushy.  After all, nobody invited him to be there.

But Eric was into it now. He’d become a kind of an amateur detective.

The day after Doris was found murdered, Eric says he discovered the police arrested two local men.

And he knew them from the beach: Two surfers named Julion Martin Chamorro and Nelson Danglas.

Volz: It’s such a small town that if you asked, “Who are the two most delinquent people, they would name these two people.” And San Juan people said on record, “We’re not even surprised that it was Nelson and Julio Chamorro.”  That was the only thing they hadn’t done, is killed somebody. 

But why would they have murdered Doris?

Eric continued his detective work.  Hoping to help the police solve the crime, he claims, he went to see the chief investigating officer.

It was a strategy that was about to backfire horribly.

Volz: He stops me in the middle of our conversation, and he tells me “Eric, you drink a lot, don’t you?  You—do you get violent when you drink, Eric?”  And  you’re a jealous guy—you know, would you kill somebody if they cheated on you?

Eric says he was outraged by the policeman’s accusations.

Volz: And I said, “You know, I don’t like your tone. I know my rights, and you’re speaking to me in an accusatory way.”

Morrison: He was accusing you of murder.

Volz: Well, he didn’t directly do it, but he was accusing me of somehow. It was his tone.

Morrison: He was implying.

Volz: Yeah.

Later the same day, two days after Doris was murdered, it was time to bury her.

Eric stepped in to help carry the coffin of his former girlfriend. He had no idea, of course, that his stint as a pallbearer would come back to haunt him. He was upset, he says.  Distraught.

Morrison: What effect did it have on you?

Volz: I went through a lot of pain. No answers, you know, just that knot that you get in your stomach when you lose somebody and definitely a lot of tears.  A lot of sorrow.

His mourning was short-lived. Just after the funeral, that very day, they came for him. It was, he says,  a complete surprise.

A man in San Juan called Eric’s mom Maggie back in Nashville.

Maggie Anthony, Eric's mom: He said, you need to excuse yourself.  And you need to find a quiet place.  Because I have some terrible news to tell you about Eric.

Morrison: What did you think?

Maggie Anthony: I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to think at that moment.

Eric had been arrested for the rape and murder of Doris Jimenez.

Maggie Anthony: I was just in shock. I felt sick to my stomach. I just felt like I was just going to throw up the whole time.

Morrison: That was the day your life changed.

Maggie Anthony: Oh, absolutely.  Absolutely.  It’s never been the same since.  Probably never will be either.  It’s devastating.

Eric was taken to a Nicaraguan jail to wait for his trial. And he says he was terrified.

Volz: All of a sudden, my life was being threatened, and I was in prison with killers and—you know, violent criminals.

Tony D’Sousa, the writer, saw a story breaking. He was on a loose contract with outside magazine.  He called his editor.

D'Souza: I just knew it was gonna be a big story. Because he was a U.S. Citizen, a white guy accused of killing a Nicaraguan girl.

And he was right. The local press jumped all over it. Or rather, all over Eric.

D'Souza: Their story was that Eric Volz raped Doris Jimenez vaginally and anally, and then killed her.

Morrison: You were said to be arrogant, wealthy, arrogant, spoiled American kid, who felt he could kill with impunity, a lovely local girl.

Volz: It was surreal for me to see the way that they were presenting me nationally.

Presenting him as a brutal killer.

But was he?

On December 7^th, regional court was assembled here in Rivas, the provincial capital.

A local judge prepared to hear the case. Outside, a crowd began to gather in the streets around the courthouse.

And soon the crowd was huge, and menacing. They were demanding Eric’s head.

Morrison: Could you hear them?

Volz: Yeah - they were yelling.

The judge, after hearing Eric’s defense eased his pre-trial imprisonment to house arrest.

The crowd, waiting heard this and was furious.  And what came next was truly terrifying.

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