The premiere of The Sancho Case was announced by surprise. On the eve of the start of the trial against Daniel Sancho for having killed the Colombian doctor Edwin Arrieta in Thailand, which begins this Tuesday, the content platform announced the launch of a documentary series on the media case for the same day. It also promised to have the testimony of the actor from series such as The Ministry of Time and The Lady, who until now has maintained a distant relationship with the media. And how does the father of the alleged murderer experience the situation?
“I’m fine. Don’t worry. I try to be stable: neither have big downturns nor big highs,” he explains in the documentary series from his house in Fuerteventura. He was left “shocked” and with “that feeling crudely known as being in a movie” when his brother called him to watch the media and how it indicated that his son could be involved in a murder.
“The first reaction is stupefaction and not believing what they are saying at face value because nothing added up, everything was very strange,” he admits. His son did not have “a criminal and delinquent resume.” It was on August 7 when she was able to talk to Daniel: “He tells me that he had a fight with a guy that I didn’t know anything about, and that it ended in a tragic way.”
His approach to the situation was pragmatic. “He knew what he had to do from the beginning,” he says, since he is still “a father fighting for his son” and could not allow himself to fall into depression or anguish. “My energy had to go to helping my son.” So he contacted the embassy and did not travel to the Southeast Asian country until he had a team of lawyers to help him.
He didn’t have many details about Daniel’s trip, although they maintained a close and fun relationship, and his son had been in Fuerteventura for two weeks shortly before leaving for Thailand. He had told him that he was going to practice Muay Thai and learn Thai cooking but he doesn’t know what the surgeon was doing there with him: “I don’t really know why Edwin goes to the island. They would have stayed there. Maybe with the intention of seeing some business there, but I don’t know the exact reason.”
Regarding Daniel’s possible financial dependence on Edwin, he can only say that his son was not short of money: “I don’t know for sure if he received money from Edwin. At first, when he offers to invest, and I don’t know what, well yes. He received something. And they had a joint card or something.”
But she is aware that at her son’s age, 29, young people can be influenced and impressionable: “Always a little more money… maybe it’s good if you want to do certain things or you like to go out to dinner in places that you like.” “They like them, but obviously that is a mistake, a trap.”
And Sancho, as expected, takes sides for his son and for the legal strategy of his team of lawyers: “The truth is that in the conversation with Daniel, he told me that this guy had threatened him with death at the time. , of harming his family. He defended himself against threats and an attempted sexual assault. And then he tells us what it was like: the fight, what happened after the fight, the fear, the panic, the state of dissociation.”
This is why, despite expressing solidarity with the family and regretting that they lost a loved one, he also sees Daniel as a victim in everything that happened: “I have the perception that there are two victims and without a doubt there is one deceased and it is terrible. I want the truth to come out. And from there we will all have to manage our sensations and feelings.” He also has the illusion that he will not be found guilty: “I have eliminated the concept of life imprisonment from my head.”
Regarding the production that has already received criticism in 24 hours, The Sancho Case is being sold from HBO Max as a project approached from “responsibility and respect” and as a novel format when the true crime occurred when the investigation was still under way. open and working on it during the trial, to have all the episodes ready when there is a sentence.
“Our goal is to document the entire process, from when the facts were known to the sentencing, taking into account the tremendous pain that this event has caused in so many people,” explained Margarita Luis, executive producer of Cuarzo, the production company behind of the project, and director of the series.
Daniel Sancho has been in provisional prison since August 7 for the murder of Edwin Arrieta, whom he admitted having dismembered five days before. He tried to dispose of the body by dividing the remains into bags, some of which he threw directly into the trash and others into the sea. The next day, after attending a party, he reported the disappearance of his alleged friend, only to end up acknowledging his involvement in the dismemberment when irrefutable evidence was found in his room.
The media focused on the case both because it was a murder with an alleged Spanish perpetrator, who was also attractive and the son of a famous actor, and because of the way the case was covered by the Thai authorities. Between interrogations and reenactments of the crime, they took Sancho to a good restaurant and allowed him to attend to the media, where Dani Sancho showed a lot of cool when talking about the events, a few days after dismembering the 44-year-old surgeon born in Lorica.
The version of events that Sancho’s defense tries to impose is that he did dismember Arrieta but that it was after the victim died accidentally during a fight. According to the team of lawyers formed by Marcos García Montes, Carmen Balfagón and Ramón Chipirrás, Arrieta was a jealous and possessive man who exercised his power over those who were close to him.
As we say, this is the butcher’s version. The Prosecutor’s Office, on the other hand, will argue that Arrieta’s death was a premeditated murder as demonstrated by the purchase of the material to dispose of the body: cleaning products, garbage bags, knives and a saw, which Sancho bought the day before ending the crime. life of the surgeon. Among the witnesses who are scheduled to testify is the woman who rented Sancho a kayak at night, which the cook used to dispose of part of the body.
With the broadcast of this preview of The Sancho Case, the rest of the episodes of which will be broadcast after the sentence on the Thai island of Samui, a hot debate is expected. To what extent does it make sense to produce a true crime in real time when there is still no perspective regarding the crime? Does it make sense to focus the attention of the case on how the family of the alleged murderer suffers, dedicating the first episode to him? And how does the format differ from the most sensational programs on free-to-air television?
