American Charged With Murder of His 22-year-old Wife and Her Friend

Larry Robert McCartney, a 68-year-old American, is behind bars waiting for the judicial process for the crimes of murder of is wife Guadalupe del Carmen García Alemán, 22, and her friend, Martha Auxiliadora López Centeno, 21 years of age.

McCartney was arrested Monday night (March 2) at a restaurant in Managua, almost three hours after police said he shot his spouse in Granada.

Police have not publicly speculated on the motive.

García was the mother of a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy from a previous relationship. López had a four-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter and was a member of a local softball team.

McCartney, a retired member of the U.S. Marine, had been living in Nicaragua for the past decade. According to his social media he professed to have done intelligence work in Central America.

García’s sister, Sonia, told local radio station La Nueva Radio YA that McCartney had visited their mother’s home in Granada to deliver the news that he allegedly had been diagnosed with just three weeks to live.

The couple married two years ago but lived apart. Police report that tracked his wife down at a friend’s home and invited her and López to a local bar in the town of La Leona.

McCartney arrived with the women at the bar 3:30 pm and left with then an hour later. While in the car, McCartney and García were involved in a heated argument, before he asked both of them to step out of the vehicle in Posintepe, Granada.

He subsequently fired several shots at García and López, striking each in the head and chest, before abandoning their bodies on a grass pitch next to the road. One of the victims was declared dead at the scene and the second one died on her way to the hospital.

In Granada, Wednesday morning, the family held mass in the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro. A few hours later they were buried in the general cemetery.

“I thank all the people of Granada who gave us great support,” said Martha Lorena López.

On the other hand, Camila Rodríguez García, Guadalupe’s sister, demands that the perpetrator of the crime “bears all the weight of the law, that they do not let him out, we do not want to see him a free man, we want justice for them both”.