Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a Spanish YouTube chef and member of a famous family of actors, was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison Thursday for the gruesome death and dismemberment of a Colombian surgeon on an island in Thailand.
Sancho, 30, was accused of murdering Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, 44, in August of last year. The two men were vacationing on the island of Koh Pha-ngan, known for its infamous “Full Moon” beach parties where travellers from around the world come to party all night. Sancho allegedly told police they had connected on Instagram a year earlier and become romantically involved, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.
At his trial on the island of Samui, Sancho had claimed he got into a fight with Arrieta for allegedly trying to sexually assault him. He said that Arrieta fell as they scuffled and hit his head on a bathtub, losing consciousness and then dying.
He had pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder.
However, he told the court that he dismembered the victim’s body and disposed of the pieces of the body on both land and sea.
The case came to light when trash collectors found what the Bangkok Post newspaper described as a sawed-off pelvis and intestines weighing about five kilograms in a fertilizer sack at a garbage dump.
Shortly after that, Sancho reported to police that Arrieta was missing, and police then gathered evidence linking the two men that led them to detain and interrogate him.
The police narrative claimed that Sancho confessed to the murder and said he planned to murder Arrieta, claiming the two were lovers, because Arrieta threatened to go public with their alleged sexual relationship and disgrace the Sancho family.
Sancho, through his father and his lawyers, said that was a distorted version of what he told police, and denied having a sexual relationship with Arrieta.
Police obtained surveillance video showing Sancho allegedly purchasing a knife, rubber gloves, garbage bags and cleaning solutions at a convenience store before Arrieta’s death, which prosecutors claimed bolstered the charge of premeditated murder.
The case attracted an enormous amount of interest given Sancho’s famous family. Rodolfo Sancho Aguirre, the defendant’s father, is a well-known actor in Spain.
The Koh Samui provincial court issued an initial sentence of death for Sancho, but in its ruling commuted it to life imprisonment due to his co-operation during the trial, according to police.
In his closing statement earlier in his trial, Sancho told the court he regretted his actions, El País reported.
“I am sorry that a life has been lost and that parents have lost a son,” Sancho said. “I am sorry that his family was not able to bury him properly. I’m sorry for what I did after the death.”
In addition to the life sentence, the court ordered Sancho to pay over four million baht, or about C$160,000, to Arrieta’s family.
— With files from The Associated Press