Venezuelan detained in Medellín accused of killing Dutch tourist in Salento
Eduardo Ramiro Mendoza Nare was captured as the alleged perpetrator of the femicide and robbery of Marlies Minke Genz, a 41-year-old tourist who disappeared in Salento on 25 May.
Arrest in Medellín for the death of Dutch tourist in Salento, Quindío
The Public Prosecutor's Office secured Eduardo Ramiro Mendoza Nare in a prison facility, identified as the alleged person responsible for the death of Marlies Minke Genz, a 41-year-old Dutch tourist who disappeared in late May 2026 in Salento, Quindío. According to infobae.com, the investigating body revealed details of the arrest on the morning of Friday 18 September.
According to the Prosecutor's statement, Genz left her accommodation on 25 May to attend a tourist activity at a farm in the rural area of Salento. She took the road leading to the Palestina hamlet and from that moment all contact with her was lost.
Camera surveillance and attack in isolated rural area
Investigators from the Technical Investigation Body (CTI) established that Mendoza Nare, a Venezuelan citizen, allegedly intercepted the tourist in a remote sector, where he struck her with a blunt object in order to rob her belongings. The assault caused a head trauma that resulted in her death.
Video recordings obtained in the urban centre of Salento and on the road to the Palestina hamlet allowed investigators to reconstruct the events. "The woman is observed moving on foot from the urban centre of Salento towards the Palestina hamlet," stated the prosecutor assigned to the case during the arrest legalisation hearing. Security cameras recorded Genz's route until the entrance to the farm, being that "the last time she was observed alive".
The same recordings made it possible to establish the presence of the accused travelling the same route as the victim: "from the urban centre of Salento towards the Palestina hamlet, passing through the areas of Las Acacias, Coffee Mart and Los Naranjos, and subsequently heading towards the entrance to the farm," the prosecutor specified.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the tourist entered the farm area without knowing she was being followed. The location of the attack was described as "the vicinity of a stream located within the El Ocaso farm, a place with low foot traffic, surrounded by vegetation and far from the urban centre," conditions which, according to the prosecutor, favoured the exercise of violence without any immediate possibility of assistance or intervention by third parties.
The escape and discovery of the body
After the attack, Mendoza Nare changed clothes, abandoned the area and boarded a bus bound for Medellín, in the department of Antioquia. The body of the Dutch tourist was found five days later, on 31 May, in a stream in the sector.
The prosecutor stressed that the accused had allegedly taken advantage of the "condition of the victim being a foreign woman who did not speak Spanish and her unfamiliarity with the surroundings, as well as the evident physical superiority that he could exercise over her to subject her to a situation of domination and control through the use of force".
It was detailed that Mendoza Nare "exercised violence through physical assaults, causing her multiple blunt-force injuries to the head, face, body and lumbar region," with the objective of seizing the victim's property, including an iPhone 15 mobile telephone and wireless AirPods-type headphones.
Charges and precautionary measure
Mendoza Nare was arrested by CTI officers on a public road in Salento. A prosecutor from the Quindío Section charged him with the crimes of femicide and aggravated qualified theft. The defendant did not accept the charges, and a guarantee control judge ordered his preventive detention in a penitentiary facility while the criminal proceedings continue.
Source: Google News CO — Crime