Herlyn Espinal

Herlyn Iván Espinal Martínez (14 September 1982 20 July 2014) was a Honduran journalist and television reporter who worked as chief correspondent in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras, for Televicentro's daily newscast Hoy Mismo.

Espinal was abducted in the vicinity of Santa Rita, in the department of Yoro, early on the morning of 20 July 2014. He was found dead, a victim of multiple gunshot wounds, in a nearby location on the morning of 21 July. He was the forty-third journalist killed in Honduras since 2013.

Early life and education Espinal was born and raised in the Santa Rita district of Yoro. In a 2009 interview he said that from an early age he had aspirations of becoming a journalist. In his youth, Espinal was active in the La Fragua theater company in El Progreso, Yoro.

Career His first job as a journalist was with a local television channel in Agua Blanca Sur, Yoro, as a reporter and a presenter. He did both his own field work and presented it later on camera. He told an interviewer that journalists should always be "objective, impartial, and honest", and that journalists who take bribes will ultimately be exposed, adding, "Truth is mighty and will prevail".

On multiple occasions he ran as a Liberal Party candidate for city council, and at the time of his death was planning to run yet again. He said in 2009 that his "greatest personal ambition" was to pursue investigative journalism and to become mayor of Santa Rita and create new work opportunities for the town.

Murder Espinal was found dead on 21 July 2014. He was 31 at the time of his murder.

Espinal's mother stated that he had been at her home in Santa Rita watching television around 9 p.m. on July 19 when an unidentified man phoned and arranged a meeting, which Espinal agree to. Later that evening, according to multiple accounts, Espinal met with friends at a restaurant in Santa Rita, and also left with friends very early on the morning of July 20, 2014. He reportedly arrived back at his mother's home around 3 a.m., parked his car in front of the house, and then voluntarily entered a white panel truck in which three other persons were seated.

On the same day that Espinal's body was found, a pool of blood and shell casings were purportedly found on a bridge over the Humuya River on the road between Santa Rita and La Barca. Juan Mairena, head of the Honduran journalists' association, called his murder "a heavy blow for journalism".

After the Honduran Minister of Security, Arturo Corrales, suggested that the killing may have been a crime of passion or the result of an inheritance dispute, rather than an act of retribution motivated by his work as a reporter, PEN, the international organization for writers, expressed concern that investigators had ruled out Espinal's activity as a journalist as a possible motive within 24 hours of his body being found.

Investigation and arrests Just as there were inconsistencies in reports of Espinal's last hours and death, there were also apparent inconsistencies in reports about the subsequent investigation and arrests. It was reported that by 25 July, as a result of raids in Santa Rita, a total of four people had been arrested in connection with the murder. Corrales asserted that three people had been involved in the crime, and that the individual who had actually committed the murder was now outside the country. In mid-August Corrales said, "We know who did it, the reasons, and there is plenty of evidence".

José Rafael Bueso Oseguera, alias Lito Lito Kasasa, who was said to be the last known person to be with Espinal, was arrested It was reported that Bueso, after his arrest, had spoken with police for six hours and that he maintained that authorities had singled him out only because he owned a white vehicle similar to the one that Espinal had last been seen entering.

Authorities stated with "great fanfare" on 29 August that Bueso was "instrumental" in the case, but the next day they released him, citing lack of evidence of his involvement. On 31 August, the public prosecutor claimed that Bueso had never been detained, but had simply been interviewed as a witness because he was one of the last people to see Espinal alive.

A local commentator (Harold Obed Salinas), who criticized authorities on 31 August for their supposed sloppiness in the matter of Bueso, also charged them with failing to follow up leads properly and refusing to make information about the investigation publicly available. This same commentator also made sweeping accusations of official corruption and incompetence in the handling of the case, and noted that suspicion had now fallen upon a person named Juan Carlos Acosta Manzanares, although a similarity in names and appearance had caused someone named Juan Carlos Acostas Meléndez to be dragged into the case.

On 1 September, Espinal's mother issued a statement urging authorities to solve the crime. Hugo Maldonado, vice president of the Comité de Derechos Humanos (Codeh), said that it was lamentable that there was so much impunity in Honduras and that authorities might not want to make public the name of Espinal's real assassin.

A September 22 report indicated that Espinal's family had issued another such statement, calling directly on the president of Honduras for action in solving Espinal's murder and bringing his killers to justice. It was noted that as of September 22, one individual had been detained in connection with the murder, but that person was not considered a perpetrator, and that there was also an arrest order out for another person in connection with the murder.

In mid-September 2014, Hector Hernandez, coordinator of forensic medicine in San Pedro Sula, who had already been subjected to a 15-day suspension, was removed from his position because he had made public statements about the murder of Espinal. He had said that Espinal had died of multiple gunshot wounds, even though evidence had not yet been collected at the scene. While Hernandez would continue to operate as a forensic doctor on call, he would no longer be coordinator of the city morgue.