A Spanish chef and YouTuber was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for murdering and dismembering a Colombian man on the island of Ko Pha-ngan in southeast Thailand.
Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the 30-year-old son of a distinguished acting family, confessed to dismembering his victim’s body and dumping the parts on land and at sea, but said he only ever acted in self-defense against 44-year-old Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a plastic surgeon. He pleaded guilty to the murder last August but denied that it was premeditated.
A Thai court disagreed, finding him guilty of found guilty of premeditated murder, as well as concealing a corpse and destruction of property. He was also ordered to pay the victim’s family $125,000 in compensation.
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Sancho’s defense claimed Arrieta died after hitting his head on a bathtub after Sancho resisted an attempt by Arrieta to force him to have sex.
Both men were holidaying on Ko Pha-ngan, popular among foreign tourists for its monthly Full Moon beat parties and regular raves, in August 2023. Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that, according to Thai authorities, they met on Instagram and the “motive for the murder was a love affair ” between the two.
“Daniel wanted to start a new life with his girlfriend, but Dr. Edwin threatened him that, if they broke up, he would share intimate photos,” said Surachate Hakparn, the former deputy national police chief of Thailand. (Hakparn, nicknamed “Big Joke,” was removed from office in April after he was placed under investigation for his alleged involvement in an illegal online gambling operation.)
The case initially emerged when, according to The Bangkok Post, waste collectors found a sawed-off pelvis and intestines weighing 11 pounds inside a fertilizer sack at a garbage dump on Aug. 3, 2023. A day later, investigators found two legs, a black T-shirt, shorts, and red boxers in a black trash bag at the same landfill. DNA tests later confirmed the remains belonged to Arrieta.
Police said the two men, having met in person on previous travels, arranged to meet up in Ko Pha-ngan. Sancho initially told police Arrieta disappeared late at night on the evening before the first remains were found.
The Bangkok Post reported that police who inspected his hotel room found bloodstains, tissue, fat, and hair in the room’s drain.
Thai investigators said forensic evidence at the scene did confirm that Sancho and Arrieta fought in the hotel room and that Arrieta hit his head on the sink. But an autopsy determined Arrieta was killed when his throat was slit.
Sancho’s father, Rodolfo Sancho Aguirre, is a television star in Spain, and his mother, Silvia Bronchalo, is also an actress. His grandfather, Sancho Gracia, was an actor who worked in Hollywood for a time, appeared on Australian television, and co-starred in the Oscar-nominated 2002 Mexican-Spanish film The Crime of Padre Amaro.
