By David Lohr
(Continued)
On December 17, the Nicaraguan Appellate Court ruled 2-1 in favor of Eric's appeal, threw out his murder conviction and ordered his immediate release from prison. However, Eric continued to remain in police custody because the convicting judge, Ivette Toruno, refused to sign his release papers. The delay was most likely a stall tactic, so that the country's attorney general could file paperwork to appeal the ruling in a higher court. Nonetheless, in the end the pressure put on by the media and the United States Government proved to be enough to finally gain Eric his freedom.
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| Eric Volz |
Eric's case began on the afternoon of November 21, 2006, when police were called to a local clothing store to investigate the murder of the store's owner, 25-year-old Doris Ivania Jimenez. The store had been ransacked and robbed, and the young woman had been raped and strangled. The police quickly arrested two local surfers for the crimes. However, suspicion soon turned to Eric, a United States citizen who moved to Nicaragua in 2005.
According to the arrest warrant, investigators suspected that Eric, Chamorro, Lopez-Danglas and a fourth man, Armando Llanes, Doris' then boyfriend, had all worked together to rape and killed Doris.
Not long after the men were arrested, Lopez-Danglas allegedly confessed that on the day of the murder, at about 1:00 p.m., he had seen Eric and an unknown man inside the store. He further stated that Eric had paid him 50 cordobas to move some bags into a waiting car. In exchange for his confession, police dropped all charges against Lopez-Danglas. Charges were also dropped against Llanes when he presented paperwork showing he was registering for college at the time of the murder. Eric and Chamorro were both taken to a Nicaraguan jail to await trial.
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