Beltrán
Dalay Cortés Carvajal (21 November 1908 - 11 June 1984) was a convicted Costa
Rican murderer, mostly known for the killings of Ricardo Moreno Cañas and
Carlos Echandi. He is one of the most famous former prisoners of San Lucas
Island.
The family
and early years: Beltrán Cortés was born on November 12, 1908 as the youngest
of his 18 siblings to his parents Rosendo Cortés Madrigal and Amelia Carvajal
in Santa Bárbara, Heredia. By 1938 he was living with his mom and three sisters
in Santa Bárbara. He finished the first levels of elementary school and then
went to work as a farmer, never getting married or having children. A door
accidentally fell on him as a kid in Heredia's market which resulted in a head
wound that left him a permanent scar and a humerus fracture in his right arm
that never aligned because it was not properly treated in time.
The
surgeries by Dr. Moreno and Dr. Echandi: In 1928 at the age of 20 he had
surgery three times by doctors Moreno and Echandi; on June 1 both doctors surgically
wired his right humerus and then he had two follow up surgeries on July 23 by
Dr. Echandi and August 3 by Dr. Moreno. On August 2, 1929, Dr. Moreno gave him
metal plate implants, yet these were extracted on April 4, 1932. At this point
his diagnosis was an unconsolidated humerus due to syphilis.
His criminal
background: He then served as a police officer in San Rafael de Heredia. On
July 28, 1934 while on duty he killed his partner Benjamín Garita Ramírez, for
which he was convicted to a 5 year sentence in San Lucas Island however he got
years taken off his sentence by performing manual labour. When he left prison
he got a job at Chapuí Asylum, which he quickly quit to sell merchandise in the
streets.
The doctors'
murders: Cortés became obsessed with the failed surgeries over time. At least
one doctor told him they had been the surgeons' fault while an attorney
convinced him Dr. Moreno should compensate him for the hardship and pain
suffered. Cortés later stated that he had gone to the hospital to get treated
for a pain in his leg and that Dr. Moreno took advantage of this to take a
graft of bone from his healthy arm for a foreign patient. Even before the
killings he had threatened several times with killing the two doctors, leading
his mother to ask that he be admitted into Chapuí Asylum. Cortés bought a gun
from a police officer and on August 23, 1938 at 7:30 p.m (local time) he
knocked on Dr. Moreno's door. When the maid opened the door he ran into the
living room where Dr. Moreno was reading the newspaper and shot him three
times. He escaped out of the place and immediately went to Dr. Echandi's house,
even stopping along the way to ask for directions since he did not the location
too well.
When he got
there he once again knocked on the door and was received by the footman. Dr.
Echandi was on his way out, as he had heard on the radio the news of Dr.
Moreno's death and wanted to go to the crime scene. Cortés shot him twice from
the front gate, although only one of the shots actually hit him as the other
one bounced off the door. During his escape Cortés also killed a Canadian man
called Arthur Maynard and severely injured two people by the names of Egérico
Vargas Loría and Rodolfo Quirós Quirós before being caught.
Status: Sentenced to 5 years in
prison in 1934. Sentenced to life imprisonment on June 23, 1938.
San Lucas
Island: On June 23, 1938 he was
convicted to a sentence of undefined length at San Lucas Island. President León
Cortés Castro ordered the construction of a 2 square metre cell for him that
would allow all visitors to see him. During several years tourists were brought
from Puntarenas up to the island to see him exhibited in this cell. José León
Sánchez mentioned him in his book La isla de los hombres solos.
President
Otilio Ulate Blanco ordered that he be taken out of that cell and placed with
the other prisoners during a visit to the facility. During President José
Figueres' administration the country's penal code was reformed limiting Costa
Rica's maximum penalty to 30 years in prison. Since Cortés had already being
incarcerated for 32 years at this point he was immediately released. He died of
prostate cancer on June 11, 1984 at the age of 75 in his sister's house in
Santa Bárbara.
