Orlando Tercero: Murder of Haley Anderson, Nicaragua Trial and Appeal

Orlando Tercero is a dual U.S.-Nicaraguan citizen who was convicted of femicide by a Nicaraguan court for the March 2018 strangulation of Haley Anderson, a 22-year-old Binghamton University nursing student, in his Binghamton, New York apartment. After the killing, Tercero fled to Nicaragua, which refused to extradite him because he held Nicaraguan citizenship. He was tried in Managua in an unusual cross-border proceeding, found guilty on November 1, 2019, and sentenced two weeks later to 30 years in prison, the maximum penalty for femicide under Nicaraguan law.¹

Who Haley Anderson Was

Anderson grew up on Long Island and was a senior at Binghamton University’s Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, weeks from graduating when she was killed. Her mother, Karen Anderson, described her as a “beacon” and a “lighthouse” who “lighted the paths of the unfortunate.”²

She and Tercero met during their sophomore year in the same nursing program. Friends called their relationship “on-and-off” and said it had lasted about a year. Tercero wanted something more serious; Anderson did not.³ Multiple friends told investigators Tercero was “obsessed” and “extremely jealous” of anyone Anderson spent time with. His roommate said he would drive by her house and show up uninvited, refusing to leave.⁴ At trial, prosecutors argued Tercero killed Anderson out of jealousy after she reconnected with an ex-boyfriend.²

The Killing

In the early morning of March 8, 2018, Anderson went to Tercero’s apartment on Oak Street in Binghamton. She answered her last message at about 3:15 a.m.⁵ When she failed to show up for a poetry reading that evening and stopped answering her phone, her roommates used the Find My Friends app to trace her iPhone to Tercero’s apartment.³

Around the same time, Tercero’s sister called 911 for a welfare check after receiving a concerning voicemail from him. Officers knocked, got no answer, saw that his car was gone, and left. The roommates arrived shortly after, climbed through a window, and found Anderson’s body on Tercero’s bed, partly tucked under the covers. An autopsy on March 10 determined she had died from asphyxiation caused by manual and ligature strangulation.⁵

Flight to Nicaragua and Arrest

Inside the apartment, police found signs of a suicide attempt. A tie hung from a doorway, blood was on the floor, and investigators believe Tercero tried to hang himself using hooks from the basement and fell, injuring his head. Officers recovered a handwritten note in Spanish that read, in part, “I’m really sorry about this, I never felt I could be capable of doing this.”⁶

Roughly 16 hours before Anderson’s body was found, security cameras captured Tercero leaving his apartment with luggage. He drove more than three hours to JFK International Airport and, with a bandaged head wound, boarded a flight to Nicaragua, arriving on March 9, 2018 at 3:55 p.m.⁷ After hiding for several days, his mother drove him to the Hospital de León for treatment of his self-inflicted injuries. At the request of U.S. authorities, Nicaraguan police arrested him there on March 14, 2018, and transferred him to the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as “El Chipote,” in Managua.⁶

Why He Was Tried in Nicaragua, Not New York

On March 16, 2018, Binghamton City Court Judge Carol Cocchiola issued a warrant charging Tercero with second-degree murder, which in New York carries a potential sentence of 25 years to life.⁸ Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell worked with the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Justice, and Senator Chuck Schumer to seek extradition.⁹

The U.S. and Nicaragua have an extradition treaty, but it does not require either country to hand over its own citizens. On August 5, 2019, Nicaragua’s Supreme Court formally rejected the U.S. request, citing domestic law barring extradition of Nicaraguan nationals.¹⁰ With extradition off the table, Nicaraguan prosecutors charged Tercero under their own law with femicide, defined as the murder of a woman with whom the perpetrator had a relationship.⁶

The Cross-Border Trial

The trial began October 1, 2019, in a courtroom in Managua before Judge Fabiola Betancourt, who decided the case alone without a jury. Witnesses in the United States testified by video link from the Broome County DA’s office in Binghamton, with interpreters translating in both directions.⁶ The DA’s office shared evidence gathered by Binghamton police, coordinated witnesses who traveled from six states, and provided a written outline of the facts.⁹ The proceedings were livestreamed to a room in Binghamton where the Anderson family and media could watch.¹¹

Prosecutors called 17 witnesses, including Anderson’s mother, roommates, an ex-boyfriend, and investigators. Tercero did not testify. His defense argued he was not violent by nature, that his actions may have been provoked, and pointed to what it described as amiable relationships with other women.²

Verdict, Sentence, and Appeal

On November 1, 2019, Judge Betancourt found Tercero guilty of femicide. Before announcing the verdict, she denounced violence against women and said the evidence proved Tercero had killed Anderson to “punish” her for rejecting him. She noted that Anderson had “tried to maintain autonomy over herself.”¹² On November 15, 2019, she sentenced him to 30 years, the maximum for femicide under Nicaraguan law.¹

Tercero appealed, seeking to have the conviction reduced from femicide to homicide, which would have cut his sentence in half to 15 years.¹³ His lawyers cited psychiatric issues, argued he had been intoxicated and not in his right mind, and claimed insufficient evidence for the femicide charge.⁶ On March 10, 2020, a panel of three Nicaraguan magistrates denied the appeal and upheld the conviction and the 30-year sentence.¹⁴

Where the Case Stands

Tercero is serving his 30-year sentence in a Nicaraguan prison. The New York second-degree murder charge remains active, and the arrest warrant against him is still in place. Broome County DA Michael Korchak has said evidence is being preserved indefinitely in case an opportunity to try Tercero in the United States ever arises, though he acknowledged that double jeopardy arguments would likely be raised if that happened.⁴

Cornwell, the DA in office at the time of the trial, called the outcome a form of justice reached “on an international stage” and described the cooperation between two governments and multiple agencies as something “we haven’t seen before.”² Anderson’s father, Gordon, said of the Nicaraguan proceeding, “It was nice to see that Nicaragua did a really professional, bang up job to get the job done.”¹⁵

1
WWLP. Nicaraguan Judge Sentences Man to 30 Years in NY Killing
2
Press Connects. Orlando Tercero Found Guilty of Murder of Haley Anderson
3
CBS News. Haley Anderson Murder, Find My Friends, Binghamton University
4
ABC News. Death at the Dorms: Murder of SUNY Binghamton Senior Haley Anderson
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Press Connects. Binghamton University Murder: Haley Anderson, Orlando Tercero, Nicaragua
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CBS News. Haley Anderson Murder: International Manhunt
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Press Connects. Suspect in Haley Anderson Murder Arrested According to Nicaraguan News Outlets
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Press Connects. Haley Anderson Murder: Binghamton, Orlando Tercero, Broome DA Steve Cornwell
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Press Connects. Binghamton University Nursing: Haley Anderson Murder, Orlando Tercero Nicaragua Trial
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Tortilla Con Sal. Orlando Tercero Case
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WICZ. Orlando Tercero Trial Begins in Nicaragua; Witnesses Testify From Broome County Via Video Conference
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Press Connects. Hearing Scheduled for BU Nursing Student’s Killer
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Press Connects. Binghamton University Nursing Student Haley Anderson Murder: Orlando Tercero Nicaragua Femicide
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WNBF. Sentence Upheld for Killer of Binghamton University Student
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Newsweek. Orlando Tercero Murder Trial: International Manhunt, Nicaragua