More than a year after a Kansas University student was stabbed to death in Golfito, Costa Rica, KU has decided to close its study abroad program there.

The announcement Monday, almost exactly a year after KU proclaimed the rural, 14,000-resident town safe for its students, said rising tensions since the slaying of Shannon Martin and costs associated with continuing the program contributed to the decision.

Jeanette Stauffer, mother of Shannon Martin, visits Martin's grave recently at Highland Cemetery in Ottawa with Martin's 13-year-old German shepherd, Brutus. Martin, a Kansas University student, was stabbed to death while studying in Costa Rica, just days before returning for graduation. KU announced Monday that it will close the program, which has sent more than 300 students to Golfito in the past 10 years.

“Our ongoing monitoring and review of the program on several levels have persuaded us that the climate in Golfito is changing,” said Diana Carlin, dean of the Graduate School and International Programs. “The demands are more than our limited staff can handle.”

The news gave little comfort to Martin’s mother, Jeanette Stauffer of Topeka.

She said KU’s study abroad program should continue with increased safety precautions and a new director. The current director, Oscar Quiros, failed to learn enough about his community and to share that information with students, Stauffer said.

“When I asked him for a safety handout, I never got one,” she said. “I believe my daughter would still be alive if he would’ve told the students how to be safe and where not to go.”

Quiros could not be reached for comment Monday. Carlin declined to comment about his performance.

‘An agonizing mother’

Stauffer also disputed the notion that the atmosphere in Golfito had changed since May 2001, when her daughter was killed while completing a research project. She said the change came earlier, in the year after Martin studied abroad in spring 2000.

“Drugs became rampantly sold in Golfito,” said Stauffer, who has visited Costa Rica several times since her daughter was slain. “I’ve studied it, and I’ve told KU for a year to wake up.”

She declined to say whether she was considering a lawsuit against the university.

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“I don’t know,” Stauffer said. “I’m a lawyer, and there are too many lawsuits. I’m not wanting to profit. I’m an agonizing mother who lost a daughter, and it could’ve been prevented.”

Carlin said KU began reviewing the Golfito program, which began in 1992, immediately after Martin’s slaying. Between 14 and 16 students traveled there each semester; over the past 10 years more than 300 have studied in Golfito.

KU last summer sent Charlie Stansifer, a retired history professor, to visit with faculty, students, residents and law enforcement officials.

“When everybody got back at the end of the summer (2001), there were no incidents, and everybody felt safe,” Carlin said. “We decided to continue the program.”

To address safety concerns, though, the university started a new orientation program for students, which was conducted at the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of San Jose.

“We were responding to the situation, and that was, ‘OK, let’s just step it all up,'” Carlin said. “We didn’t think it was lax. When you have a murder, you want to be cautionary.”

Students harassed

But students there this summer cited incidents such as harassment on city streets and in taxi cabs. Those students’ concerns, along with the realization trials in the slaying would increase tensions, helped KU make the decision to pull the plug.

“They (the students) felt very unsettled by the whole thing,” Carlin said. “With the whole microscopic examination of this (Golfito) community by the media, it’s been difficult for them.”

Carlin also said KU would have to spend $44,000 per semester to hire a co-director to monitor safety and to pay for the orientation program.

Three suspects are being held in the Martin slaying Luis Alberto Castro and Rafael Zumbado, who were charged last week, and Katia Vanesa Cruz Murillo, who was arrested in November.

Stauffer said her main concern now was how the Golfito host families who depend on income from putting up American students would cope this fall.

Twelve students had been scheduled to leave for Costa Rica in early August through KU’s Study Abroad program. Only three of them are KU students; the rest attend other universities.

Carlin said KU was attempting to place the students in a program at the University of Costa Rica in San Jose. She said she didn’t know whether KU would make any restitution to families who were planning to host students.

“We haven’t gotten to that piece yet,” she said.