American killed with 5 workers on Costa Rican ranch had legal history that could hint at a motive

[ad_1]

A Florida man, 61, massacred alongside five ranch workers in Costa Rica may have made enemies during his two decades in the nation after it was revealed he was sued by restaurant employees for severance checks after he closed down his restaurant and testified against a cop who shot his security guard dead.

The body of Stephen Paul Sandusky was found shot and burned in an incinerated pick up truck at his ranch in Llano Bonito de Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

Sandusky, who had been living in the Central American country since 2000, had reportedly recently moved out to the ranch in the hopes of living a quiet life.

He and his ex-wife, Costa Rican national Anne Valverde, raised two boys in the country who are now attending college in the US – the Floridian intended to return to his home country to be closer to them, she told Dailymail.com.

‘Even though we were divorced, we always remained in a good relationship. As the father of our children, we had good communication,’ Valverde told Dailymail.com

‘The last day I saw him, I never thought they were going to do something so disastrous, so devastating to us.’

Joseph, one of Sandusky’s sons, told Dailymail.com that his ‘father was a great man who never got involved with anything of this nature.’

The body of Stephen Paul Sandusky, 61 (pictured) was found shot and burned in an incinerated pick up truck at his ranch in Llano Bonito de Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, Costa Rica

The father-of-two used to own a restaurant called ‘Fishlips’ in Dominical de Osa, but upset many locals when he closed the business down, between 2004 and 2005, without giving staff their final pay checks.

The former employees sued him for their severance pay and bonuses but he claimed in legal proceeding that he had fired the staff because they had stolen from him. It’s not clear what, if any, proof he offered.

Stephen Paul Sandusky, 61, is pictured driving on his Llano Bonito property. He had been living in the country since 2000, according to Q Costa Rica

Police were initially investigating the massacre as a robbery gone wrong but now say that it doesn’t appear that anything was taken. Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency told Dailymail.com that expensive farming equipment was ‘ready to be taken, but they didn’t take it.’ The agency said Sandusky’s home (pictured) was in ‘disarray,’ and had a broken window, suggesting the intruders were searching for something

Afterward, according to Sandusky’s lawyer Jorge Enrique Infante, the American moved to quiet Llano Bonito and began farming because he ‘wanted to live in peace.’

‘He was a very noble, kind, and generous person. He told me that he wanted to learn agriculture and that is why he bought the farm,’ Infante told Q Costa Rica.

‘He started with cattle and then he realized that he had a small profit. Years ago we stopped having a professional relationship but about a year ago I ran into him in a supermarket and we were talking. Yes, he told me that they robbed him a lot.’

Valverde echoed Infante, telling Dailymail.com that Sandusky began farming to ‘live a calmer life.’

‘Steve in general never liked problems. He always avoided a lot in having problems with the neighbors of Llano Bonito,’ she said.

‘If he could help them he helped them with the school, with anything else, he [would] help. He went to live on the farm to stay away from negative people.’

But the peace was short-lived after one of Sandusky’s security guards on his Llano Bonito property, Édgar Humberto Rojas Blanco, was shot dead in 2006. His killer was a crooked former cop, whose name was only reported as Saldaña.

Blanco had called his boss, reporting that Saldaña had been stealing zinc sheets and when he had confronted him, the former officer threatened to shoot the guard. A short time later, Saldaña kept true to his word.

Sandusky was a key witness against Saldaña during the ex-cop’s murder trial in November 2006 and helped put him away for 12 years.

Saldaña has since been released and it’s unclear whether he made contact with Sandusky after leaving jail.

DailyMail.com is awaiting comment from the Buenos Aires Prosecutor’s office regarding the 2006 murder trial.

Sandusky was one of more than 6,200 victims of a millionaire scam attributed to Osvaldo Villalobos, whose companies Ofinter and ‘The Brothers’ embezzled investors with the false promise of interest, according to La Nacion.

The ranch where the massacre took place is one of two that Sandusky owns in the Buenos Aires area, the publication reported.

Sandusky had listed the Llano Bonito property, where he and his employees were tortured and murdered, for $1.8 million in 2019 and left it without a buyer on the market for two years, listing agent Diego Quesada told The Independent.

‘He wanted to go back to his family and he wanted to go back to the States,’ Quesada said.

‘Since then and after the pandemic started, he didn’t lower the price of the property, and so far the listing was active and still looking to sell.’

Valverde told Dailymail.com that both of Stephen’s sons – one enrolled in college and the other working and studying at the same university – are both living in the US.

‘He was selling the property to live with my children… he wanted to be close to his two sons.’

‘He was a hard-working man, he was working on his farm, he loved his farm… but he was already tired and sick and I think that being close to his family and his two children at this time would have been good for him.’

She also said that he required a knee surgery, which he intended to get when he returned to the states, and said he was ‘hardly able to walk.’

Currently, the Organismo de Investigacion have no leads in the slaughter – they were called out to the ranch in Llano Bonito after victims’ family members found their relatives’ bodies on the property

The remote property can only be accessed using a four-wheel-drive vehicle on a gravel road, about two miles from the closest public street, and through several streams police said – Costa Rica’s judicial agency amassed a team of forensic analysts and detectives from the nation’s capital, San Jose, six hours away

Sandusky’s siblings, Michael, Vincent, Alma and Constance Sandusky, were unwilling to comment when contacted by DailyMail.com.

The bodies of Sandusky and the five farm workers had been found after family members of the Costa Rican staff came looking for their relatives who hadn’t come home on Monday morning, police said.

The other five victims – 44-year-old Daniel Quesada Cascante, his 41-year-old wife Villarevia Rivera, their 20-year-old son Daniel Quesada, a woman named Zúñiga Rodriguez, 40, and a man named Borbón Muñoz, 38 – went to the property on Sunday to repair agricultural machinery, according to TVSur.

Two bodies were found burned, one in a pick up truck and one nearby, although police assume that Sandusky’s was the body in the bed of the incinerated  truck. Cops said they can’t be certain until an autopsy has been completed.

Although the rest of the corpses were covered in fuel, they were not burned but shot to death.

Police were initially investigating the massacre as a robbery gone wrong but now say that it doesn’t appear that anything was taken.

Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Agency told Dailymail.com that expensive farming equipment was ‘ready to be taken, but they didn’t take it.’

However, it appeared that Sandusky’s house was ransacked. The agency said the home was in ‘disarray,’ and had a broken window, suggesting the intruders were searching for something.

Chief Information Officer Marisel Rodriguez Solis confirmed they are still investigating the mass murder with robbery as the ‘preliminary principal motive but that they may ‘discard’ that line as the investigation continues.

Daniel Quesada Cascante, 44 (pictured left), his 20-year-old son (pictured second from right) and his 41-year-old wife Villarevia Rivera (pictured right) were among the six tortured and killed on the remote ranch in the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica

The slaying shook the peaceful nation, which has the lowest homicide rate in Central America at 11.1 per every 100,000 inhabitants.

A broken window and signs of a search inside the home on the property have lead authorities to believe the mass murder could have been a robbery gone wrong.

Sandusky and another of the victims were found burned – one of them was found in the cargo bed of a ‘fully-burned’ pick up truck on the property.

The two women, Rodriguez and Rivera – both shot in the head – were found in front of the vehicle. In an alley about 300 feet away was a man’s body riddled with gunshot wounds – although their corpses weren’t burned like the other two victims, the three were covered in fuel.

The remote property can only be accessed by a private road, about two miles from the closest public street, police said

The two women, Rodriguez and Rivera (pictured) – both shot in the head – were found in front of the vehicle. In an alley about 300 feet away was a man’s body riddled with gunshot wounds – although their corpses weren’t burned like the other two victims, the three were covered in fuel

Relatives of the victims traveled to the property after their family members hadn’t returned home, stumbling upon the carnage at the farm.

‘We walked in and found my son’s body fully burned, the scene with the women around the car, it was hard to find all the bodies burned and wrapped in tires and some with shots,’ Eladio Quesada, the slain 44-year-old’s father, told local news outlet AHCR Noticias.

Police were called to the scene at 1 am.

The remote property can only be accessed using a four-wheel-drive vehicle on a gravel road, about two miles from the closest public street, and through several streams police said – Costa Rica’s judicial agency amassed a team of forensic analysts and detectives from the nation’s capital, San Jose, six hours away.

The United States Embassy was unable to give further details about Sandusky, they said, due to privacy laws.  DailyMail.com could not reach the OIJ for comment at press time.

[ad_2]