Quick Take
Nearly nine months after Kurt Van Dyke, a Santa Cruz native and surfing legend, was found stabbed to death in his Costa Rica apartment, authorities have arrested two people in connection with his killing.
Nearly nine months after surfing legend and Santa Cruz native Kurt Van Dyke, 66, was found dead in his apartment in Costa Rica, the country’s judicial investigation agency announced the arrest of two suspects.
In a Facebook video post, the agency said, in Spanish, that it had arrested a 31-year-old woman and 34-year-old man accused of involvement in Van Dyke’s killing. On Feb. 14, investigators found Van Dyke under a bed with stab wounds and signs of asphyxiation.
According to previous reports about the incident, investigators said two men entered Van Dyke’s apartment and held him and a woman with whom he shared the unit at gunpoint before taking a number of valuables and then attacking Van Dyke and fleeing.
The Costa Rican Judicial Investigation Agency said the suspects had also allegedly planned to gain access to a bank account connected to a hotel that Van Dyke owned, Hotel Puerto Viejo. The report didn’t provide the suspects’ names.
Peter Van Dyke, Kurt’s brother, told Lookout earlier this year that Kurt was a generous and easygoing person.
“No matter what happened, it was like water on a duck’s back. It’d just roll off and he would move on,” Peter said in February. “The people in his town [in Costa Rica] are devastated because he’s been down there since the ‘80s and he became part of that community.”
Kurt Van Dyke hadn’t lived in Santa Cruz for decades, but he and his family were well-known in the local surf community. His parents, Gene and Betty Van Dyke, were both surfing pioneers and are featured in an exhibit at the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum at Lighthouse Point.
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