The death of John Bender mystified the world. A handsome American millionaire, Bender moved to Costa Rica with his wife, Ann, two years after they married, and set about building a 2,000-hectare nature reserve, centred on a mountaintop mansion that had neither walls nor windows. But despite moving to this vision of paradise, the couple’s mental health fell into sharp decline and in January 2010, Bender died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Thanks to an unscientific forensic investigation by the Costa Rican authorities, the perpetrator remains unknown. Suicide is one option – John had written emails about wanting to die in the weeks previously – but the fact that he was shot in the back of the head, in bed, while wearing earplugs, suggests that Ann may have shot him. In the intervening years, the Costa Rican justice system (which has no double jeopardy law) has tried Ann Bender for murder on three separate occasions; of these, she was convicted once and acquitted twice.
