San Jose, Costa Rica – ? Jeanette Stauffer’s Costa Rican media blitz showed signs of bearing fruit Friday, when investigators reportedly received an early-morning phone call from an unidentified source providing information that could help indict suspects in Shannon Martin’s slaying before a Thursday deadline.

The new information came in response to Stauffer’s emotional nationally televised plea Wednesday night for a taxi driver to come forward with testimony. Details about the new lead were not released. But Stauffer, a Topeka resident, said the information could help in the 22-month-old investigation into her daughter’s death.

“The new evidence based on my pleas makes me hope that there will be an indictment by next Thursday,” Stauffer said.

Her appearance on the 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. nightly news also prompted new interest in the case by Costa Rica’s print and radio media. After being briefed by the Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ), Stauffer gave a news conference Friday afternoon and delivered a prepared statement translated into Spanish by police.

Originally hesitant about Stauffer’s media campaign idea, the OIJ apparently recognized the benefits of her televised appeal for justice the night before and allowed her to release the name of the taxi driver being sought for information.

“I am pleading with the taxi driver, whose name is Esteban Madriz Acuña, to please come forward,” Stauffer said to the flashing of cameras and scribbling of reporters. “My heart goes out to him and his family. I know it is a very difficult position for him to be in. I am sure he is concerned about protecting his family from harm, yet I am pleading with him to come forward to provide information about the two murder suspects.”

Martin, a 23-year-old biology student at Kansas University, was stabbed to death in Golfito in May 2001, one week before she was scheduled to graduate with honors.

Primary suspect Katia Cruz, 28, has been detained since November 2001. Under Costa Rican law, if she is not formally indicted for murder by Thursday, she will be released.

Two other male suspects also have been fingered in the stabbing death. Cruz’s former boyfriend, Alberto Castro, 38 — known as “Caballo” — was arrested last July but conditionally released five months later. Rafael Zumbado, a 47-year-old known as “Coco,” was arrested and released along with Castro. Zumbado, however, was later arrested for his alleged involvement in a separate homicide, and is being detained under preventive custody.

— Tim Rogers is a reporter for The Tico Times newspaper in Costa Rica.