Marcela Alexandra Hernández López was found burned and half-buried on a property in Las Vueltas de La Cruz, Guanacaste, last Saturday, April 5. Her femicide (murder of a female because of her gender) is in addition to that of Katherine Tatiana López Murillo, from Liberia, who was murdered with a knife on February 20 in Liberia.
With these cases, Guanacaste has a tally of two femicides so far in 2025, making it the second most violent start to a year for women in the last eight years, preceded only by 2023, when four femicides were recorded in the first three months.
This was deduced from an analysis of The Voice of Guanacaste’s database on femicides in the province, which we compiled with official data from the Public Ministry and the Judiciary.
Katherine and Marcela’s alleged murderers took their lives at very young ages: Katherine was 21, and Marcela was 19. The investigators’ prime suspects are people who were in or previously had a romantic relationship with the victims: in Katherine’s case, her ex-partner, surnamed Jiménez Mercado— with whom she had a child— and, in Marcela’s case, her partner, whose last name is Tinoco, who was twice her age at 45.
According to information from the Public Ministry, both are being held in prison, waiting while the investigations proceed in order to take the cases to trial. Katherine’s femicide is recorded in case file 25-000584-060-PE and Marcela’s is in case file 25-001083-060-PE.
This kind of violence doesn’t just happen in Guanacaste, since the country records an average of one femicide per week, reaching a total of 15 by April of 2025, a number that alarms activists and researchers of gender-based violence.
The rate of femicides committed by the women’s partners increased from 0.59 in 2022 to 1 in 2024. This means that in 2024, there was one death for every 1,000 women, according to data presented by Sylvia Mena of the Feminist Network Against Violence Toward Women in the panel discussion “From Outrage to Action: Responses to Femicide,” held on March 27 at the National University’s main campus.
If we ask ourselves what is the reason for this increase, we need to consider the weakening of specific public policies for the prevention of violence against women and the weakening of the institutionality of gender, of INAMU (National Institute of Women), in addition to the prevailing social violence in the country and symbolic violence,” Mena added.
Law Reform Punishes Several More Types of Relationships
Since 2007, the country has recognized and punished femicides under the Law Penalizing Violence against Women. In 2021, the Legislative Assembly reformed legislation to recognize not only violent deaths that occur at the hands of couples (married or common-law) as femicide, but also those who are dating, living together or in casual relationships, even if there are divorces, separations, or breakups.
Cases in which the perpetrator took advantage of a bond of trust, friendship, authority or blood relationship up to the third degree are also considered femicides, regardless of whether or not they live under the same roof.
The maximum penalty for the crime of femicide is 35 years in prison.
During 2018 in Guanacaste, 1,047 girls younger than 15 years old became mothers. Only one father in that same age range was reported
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