with lawyer
The statement shows that, with the help of a Thai lawyer and a British translator, Sancho argues there was a struggle between the two men and denies planning the crime by buying the knife and saw. He claims he bought those items to produce a video for his YouTube channel, Pure Joy, and that he later used them in dismembering the body but that dismemberment was not his original intention. He signs the statement to confirm these details.
The defense team, led by Carmen Balfagón, Ramón Chipirrás and Marcos García-Montes, argues that Sancho sought permission from the hotel manager to record cooking videos in the room and that a hotel employee would be called to testify about this during the trial.
“He bit my arms”
In prison, Sancho confesses after the dismemberment of Edwin Arrieta that there was a prior fight and that he did not premeditate the crime. Investigators present three photos showing injuries on the body. Sancho maintains that the first and third photos resulted from a fight and says the deceased bit him on the arms before dying.
During interrogation, investigators press him on the sequence of events, asking which hand he used and how many times the blows landed on Edwin’s face.
Sancho responds that he struck with his left hand two or three times on Edwin’s face.
At another point in the session, he reiterates that he did not use a knife to kill Arrieta. He states that Edwin was alive when the knife was not sharp enough for the task, and his anger arose only after the act of dismemberment.
No cause of death
Sancho’s own account acknowledges anger as a motivating factor. Autopsies on Edwin Arrieta’s remains found no stab wounds and revealed a fracture at the back of the skull, making the exact cause of death unclear. The confession confirms that dismemberment followed the initial violence and that premeditation is not accepted as his motive by the statements made to police on August 6 and 7.
In his final interrogation, Sancho details the cutting process: he began with the left wrist using a saw, placed body parts into garbage bags, then removed arms and the neck. He describes using a knife for some of the flesh and a saw for the bones.
Daniel Sancho admits to dismembering Arrieta’s body
The account aligns with statements given to authorities on August 6 and 7. He recalls drafting songs that night about dismembering Arrieta and drawing images of those pieces. From prison, he notes uncertainty about the total number of pieces, estimating roughly 17 to 20, stored in eight or nine bags, without clear knowledge of which organs each bag contained.
“I was scared and confused”
When pressed about memory gaps, Sancho explains he could not control his emotions. Fear and confusion overwhelmed him then, and he found it hard to manage his actions.
He recounts leaving several bags of Edwin Arrieta’s remains in garbage containers and renting a canoe to dispose of others. The statement describes paddling multiple times to cast body parts into the sea, with a total of about six bags involved and uncertainty about the exact contents of each bag.
Regarding the fate of the deceased’s phone, passport, and documents, Sancho states that the phone was thrown into the sea, placed inside a Louis Vuitton bag, while the passport and documents were placed in a plastic bag beside the body, with uncertainty about whether they were discarded at sea or in a trash area.
This marks the last formal statement from Daniel Sancho. Sources close to him indicate police visits to the prison in October to obtain further information about Edwin Arrieta’s passport, but Sancho reportedly refused to testify. The case proceeds toward a Thai trial expected next April, with charges including premeditated murder, dismemberment and concealment of the body, as well as theft of the victim’s documents.