Man sentenced to 35 years in grisly murder, dismemberment filmed on a cell phone

June 8^th, 2015 (InsideCostaRica.com) A Limon court has sentenced Jose Luis Rodriguez Zamora to 35 years in prison for the murder and dismemberment of a man in February 2012 that one of his accomplices apparently recorded on cell phone video.

Rodriguez’s accomplices, brothers Jonathan and Nicolas Jimenez were sentenced for their role in the crime in September 2014.

According to prosecutors, Rodriguez and the Jimenez brothers lured the victim onto a boat for a supposed fishing trip.

Once out to sea, Jonathan Jimenez shot the victim in the back.  Rodriguez then decapitated and dismembered the man’s body, stuffing the remains into three lobster traps that were tossed overboard.  Nicolas Jimenez apparently made a video recording of the events on his cell phone.

The victim’s remains were never recovered.

Investigators believe the victim and the Jimenez brothers worked for an international drug trafficking organization, and that a drug-related dispute may have been the motive in the killing.

Investigators were unable to recover the cell phone video, though a witness testified in court that he had been shown the video.  During the trial on Friday, the witness – a convicted killer himself – described the video as a “macabre scene out of a horror movie.”