A former Marine pleaded guilty to second degree murder in federal court in San Diego on Wednesday in the death and dismemberment of his girlfriend, whose body he dumped in a remote jungle on a Panamanian island in 2011.
Four years after the disappearance of Yvonne Baldelli, her then boyfriend, Brian Karl Brimager, admitting fatally stabbing the Dana Point woman in the back with a knife and dismembering her body with a machete, according to a news release from Department of Justice.
Baldelli, 42, was last seen on Carenero Island on Nov. 26, 2011, just two months after she and Brimager moved there, according to investigators.
On the island, Brimager played his guitar in bars for tips, and Baldelli served as his manager, family members said.
In his guilty plea, Brimager admitted obstructing the investigation into Baldelli disappearance and death by destroying, concealing and disposing of evidence, including a blood-stained mattress and Baldelli’s dog, clothes and jewelry, the release stated.
The 39-year-old also admitted using Baldelli’s online identity to send emails to her friends and family members after she was dead and to withdraw money from her bank account in Costa Rica.
His actions were a calculated attempt to make it seem as though Baldelli was alive and well and traveling with another man in Costa Rica, according to Laura Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California.
“Brian Brimager took a young woman’s life in a heinous way and then further victimized her family by creating a cruel lie that she was happily traveling the world with another man,” said Duffy.
Baldelli’s skeletal remains were discovered by a Panamanian citizen approximately 21 months after her murder.
“Now that Brimager has finally admitted his crime, we hope that the truth, and knowing that their daughter’s murderer will serve decades in prison, will give this grieving family a sense of justice and peace,” Duffy said.
Brimager has been in federal custody since June 2013, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, according to the release.
A sentencing hearing was scheduled for May 25, 2016.
