ADVENTUROUS. ALONE. ATTACKED.
Carla Stefaniak did everything “right”, her best friend said. On a five-day holiday to Costa Rica in November to celebrate her 36th birthday, the young woman chose a gated Airbnb villa near the airport. It had a security guard. It was in a safe neighbourhood. And she made sure to get home before dark. The night before she was to fly home to Florida, she contacted her best friend, Laura Jaime, on FaceTime. She showed her the earrings she bought in a market and gave a video tour of her villa.
The friends planned to see each other the next day, when Jaime was to pick her up from the airport. But Stefaniak never boarded her flight. During their phone call, Stefaniak had made a strange remark. She said the situation felt “sketchy”, but didn’t elaborate. “Carla knew at 8:20 that night that something was wrong,” Jaime said. “Sometimes we justify our intuition. But when something is triggered and something feels wrong, you have to listen to it.”
A week later, Stefaniak’s brutalised body was found wrapped in plastic and half-buried in a forest near her Airbnb rental. The
