Brazilian police say they are investigating whether the husband of Manhattan art dealer Brent Sikkema was acquainted with the Cuban suspect arrested this week in Sikkema’s brutal murder in Rio de Janeiro, according to Brazilian news reports.
Sikkema, 75, whose Chelsea gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co. representing Vik Muniz and Kara Walker, among other high-profile artists, was found on Monday, dead of multiple stab wounds to her throat and face in a home she owned in the seaside town.
Cuban national Alejandro Triana Prevez was arrested on Thursday in connection with the murder. Police said they seized jewelry and cash equivalent to more than $36,000 in the arrest of the fugitive, who was stopped by police near a highway in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
Police said they wanted to speak to Sikkema’s estranged husband, who is also from Cuba, the paper reported Saturday. Rio police said the couple was going through a “bitter” divorce and a custody battle over their 12-year-old son, according to a report in O Globo, Rio de Janeiro’s daily newspaper.
“Knowing that the suspect in custody is a Cuban citizen, a new phase of the investigation will begin to confirm whether the ex-husband had any relationship with the accused,” Rio police spokesman Alexandre Herdy said at a press conference Friday.
Brent Sikkema, who represented Vik Muniz and Kara Walker, among other high-profile artists, was found dead at his home in Rio on Monday. Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Triana, 30, landed in Brazil from Cuba as a refugee in 2022, according to a post on her Facebook page. Police said they found a 92-page book written by Triana and published the same year, titled “Gray Reflections on Love,” according to O Globo. The book, a journal of sorts, includes suggestions for getting the most out of life, the report said.
Police said, according to video surveillance, the suspect fled Sikkema’s house in the Jardim Botanico neighborhood for nearly 14 consecutive hours last week, before his body was found.
The footage shows Triana sitting in her car and in the area outside Sikkema’s residence from 2:20 pm last Saturday until almost 3:57 am Sunday morning. He allegedly entered the premises a short time later, and left 14 minutes later, police said.
Police say that suspect Alejandro Triana Prevez was out of Brent Sikkema’s Rio de Janeiro home for nearly 14 hours last week. AP
“We have no doubt that this was a planned crime,” Herdy said. “What we don’t know is the motive of the crime, whether it is robbery or something else. It is understood that the suspect was very careful, leaving the air conditioner in the bedroom so as not to arouse suspicion. He also left an expensive mobile phone near the body, which we don’t understand.”
Sikkema, who travels to Rio from New York three times a year, was met Monday by his Brazilian lawyer, who has a key to his house.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
