-Published: Wednesday, December 4, 2019-




By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

The Prosecutor's Office of Liberia Tuesday requested a hearing with a judge in the local court to ask for pre-trial precautionary measures to be imposed against a 20-year-old man surnamed Dávila-Corea, who "is suspected of allegedly causing a traffic accident in which three people died and another person was seriously injured. "

At the close of the edition, Dávila continued in the cells of the Public Ministry awaiting the hearing with a judge and a representative of the Prosecutor's Office.

Monday the monitoring department of the Red Cross in Liberia received the emergency call about a car crash on the road near Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport in Guanacaste. That was at approximately 4:30 a.m.

One of the two cars in the accident was a tourist minibus where a family from Texas was traveling from the hotel at the airport to take a flight to the United States after having been on vacation in Guanacaste.

When paramedics arrived at the car crash scene, three people had died.

One was a 38-year-old U.S. citizen woman surnamed Roberson as well as her 6-year-old son.

Also dead was the tourist minibus driver, a Costa Rican surnamed Pereira-Leiva. He was 39.

The paramedics attended another tourist who was traveling in the minibus, a 54-year-old male U.S. citizen, also surnamed Roberson. He is husband of the deceased woman and father of the deceased child, the Red Cross said.

The paramedics took Roberson to the Enrique Baltodano Briseño Hospital in Liberia.

The hospital's patient information department reported Tuesday that Roberson left the hospital that morning.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Dávila was traveling in a red pick-up in the opposite direction as the tourist minibus carrying the Roberson family.

The investigation suggested that one of the two vehicles invaded the opposite line causing the accident.

Agents of the Judicial Investigation Organization confirmed that Dávila submitted to a breathalyzer test. The level of alcohol detected was within the parameters allowed by law, they said.

The prosecutor's thesis is that Dávila's vehicle invaded the lane in which the Roberson family was traveling and caused the head-on crash.

The victims were traveling from La Cruz to the airport, and Dávila was driving in the opposite direction.


In a similar case Oct. 18, a judge in Liberia ordered three months of for pre-trial detention against a man of Salvadoran nationality suspected of causing a two-vehicle accident where three U.S. citizens and one Costa Rican died.

According to a report, the suspect was driving a truck near the community of Santa Elena, a few kilometers from La Cruz on the North American Highway, seven kilometers from the main entrance of the Santa Rosa National Park. Police said he was under the effects of alcohol.

At 7:55 p.m. the truck invaded the opposite lane and crashed into a tourist minibus in which were traveling nine people, the Costa Rican driver and eight U.S. citizens who were tourists.

In the accident, four people died, among them, the driver of the minibus and three U.S. citizens identified as a 46-year-old woman surnamed Niemiec, her 46-year-old husband with the same last name and a third tourist, surnamed Williams, 50-year-old.

The other four U.S. citizens traveling in the same tourist minibus were taken by paramedics from the Red Cross to the Enrique Baltodano Briseño Hospital in Liberia, the judicial agent said. "Two were in a delicate health condition and the other two in stable health condition," agents added.

The other U.S. citizens left the country a couple of days after the accident. They surnames were not provided by the judicial agents.

According to Jonathan Caseres, deputy director of the Traffic Police, on the night of the accident, the tractor-trailer driver was taken to the emergency room of the Liberia hospital where he was given two breath tests to detect alcohol, and both tests resulted positive.

Judicial agents said "the trailer driver was traveling south-north apparently at high speed, and he lost control of the truck and crashed into the microbus that was traveling in the opposite direction."




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What is the penalty in your country, the drunk driver that causes the death of other people in a traffic accident?   We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com