Costa Rica: Killer of 2 U.S. Women Sentenced

S A N   J O S E, Costa Rica, July 26 -- A 16-year-old Costa Rican youth convicted in the March killings of two Americanwomen has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, judicial sources said.

Olger Castro Cruz, sentenced on Wednesday in a judicial proceeding closed to the press, received the maximum penalty for murder that a minor can under Costa Rican law. He could be released after seven years, authorities said.

Emily Howell, of Lexington, Ky., and Emily Rachel Eagen,of Ann Arbor, Mich., both 19, were both shot in the head andtheir bodies left along a highway near the Caribbean coastaltown of Puerto Viejo.

Castro Cruz was accused of firing one of two guns used inthe murders. Police said he then wrecked the victims’ rentedpickup truck and sold the gun, a Spanish-made Basque pistol.

Another Costa Rican man is under arrest and facing trial forthe killings and a Nicaraguan suspect wanted in the case is afugitive.

Howell was a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs,Ohio and was in Costa Rica on a college cooperative educationprogram. Eagen was a former Antioch student. Both had beenliving for in the Costa Rican capital for some weeks.

Police earlier said the two women may have given the threesuspects a ride in their pickup truck. They also said themotive for the murders was perhaps robbery, and that thekillers may have been under the influence of drugs.