Death in the Dorms: How the murder of SUNY Binghamton senior Haley Anderson led to an international trial
From a 20-year-old Jackson State University accounting major who was stabbed and left in a wooded area, to an 18-year-old who died just 24 days into his freshman year at Louisiana State University, the deaths of university students can be especially tragic. The new season of ABC News Studios' "Death in the Dorms" follows the stories of six young people who were in the prime of their lives, set to embark from college life to the "real world," when their lives were cut short.
Fun, curious Haley Anderson grew up on Long Island as a straight-A student.
"When she was setting out looking at colleges, we went to Binghamton University and she walked in on the campus and she fell in love with it," her mom, Karen Anderson, said.
"She applied to the nursing school at Binghamton University for her junior year and she got accepted," her mom said. "She thrived in that program and she loved it."
Watch the ABC News Studios six-part series, "Death in the Dorms," which tells the tragic stories of six college students whose lives were cut short by violent crime. The series begins streaming exclusively on Hulu on Feb. 22.
A few years into college, Haley Anderson started dating Kevin Ocampo.
"They had a lot of fun together," Karen Anderson said. "But when it started getting closer to her graduation time, she started thinking about if she wanted to be in a serious relationship, so there were a couple times with Kevin that they talked about putting it on hold for a while."
Haley Anderson met student Orlando Tercero in her nursing program sophomore year.
"He had dual citizenship with [the] United States and Nicaragua," Karen Anderson said. "His mother and his father were living in Nicaragua. His father was a doctor, so he wanted to kind of follow in his footsteps and become a nurse."
The friendship between the two nursing students did become romantic, but they were never in a committed relationship, according to Haley Anderson's friends.
"Haley was just ready to start her independent life free from anything that was gonna keep her attached to one area," Karen Anderson said. "She wanted to have a career and really embrace the career and embrace the perks that come from having that salary and ability to travel. She had a job lined up at Northwell [Health system in New York], as long as she passed her nursing boards. So that would have been the next step -- she would have graduated and studied for her nursing board [and] taken those in June."
With her busy spring underway, on March 8, 2018, Haley Anderson was due to meet her friends at a poetry reading -- but she never showed up.
Her friends eventually tracked down her iPhone to Tercero’s apartment.
They went over there on March 9. No one answered the apartment door, so the friends climbed through the window -- and found Haley Anderson’s body on Tercero’s bed, officials said.
The 22-year-old's death was ruled a homicide by manual strangulation, officials said.
As police searched Tercero’s home, they found evidence of an apparent failed suicide attempt, Binghamton police Lt. Cory Minor said.
Police also found a handwritten note in Spanish.
"The note translated [to], 'I’m really sorry about this, I never felt I could be capable of doing this,'" Minor said. "At that point … Orlando’s our person of interest -- we have to find him."
Investigators spoke to Haley Anderson’s friends and learned "Orlando was obsessed with Haley, and jealous that she was with other people," Minor said.
"Orlando was jealous of Haley dating Kevin, dating other people, dating in general," her friend Sydney Matuszak said.
"Sometimes he would show up on her doorstep uninvited, and when asked to leave multiple times, he wouldn’t,” her friend Melanie Heney said. "He had the way with his words where he could make a sob story out of his life. And the type of person Haley was, felt for those type of people, because she just had such a kind heart."
Authorities started their hunt for Tercero and learned he'd flown to Nicaragua, where he had dual citizenship.
Tercero was arrested in Nicaragua -- but prosecutors faced hurdles trying to extradite him.
"There came a point in time when the authorities in Nicaragua made it clear to our local government and our federal government that he was going to be tried down there, based on the fact that he was a citizen of Nicaragua," Broome County District Attorney Michael Korchak said.
In Nicaragua, Tercero was charged with femicide -- the murder of a woman due to her gender.
"We don’t have that law in New York state -- we have murder in the second degree, that’s what he was charged with in this case under New York law," Korchak said.
New York prosecutors used Skype and translators to keep the Anderson family involved in the criminal proceedings.
"We did everything that we could to help Haley’s family through the process, but we were learning the process ourselves at the same time, trying to explain it to them," Korchak said.
In Nicaragua, the judge has "the authority to make the decision as to whether someone is guilty or not guilty," Korchak said. "So we didn’t know anything about this judge, we didn’t know what the judge was gonna do, it was a very stressful time for everyone involved."
In November 2019, Tercero was convicted of femicide and was sentenced to the maximum of 30 years in prison.
"I’m glad he got what he deserved to the fullest extent of the law, but death is forever and he’s not gonna be there forever," Karen Anderson said.
As Tercero sits in prison in Nicaragua, there’s a standing warrant for him in New York state.
"Would we bring him back to be tried a second time? Decisions would have to be made down the line,” Korchak said. "His defense attorney in New York state as well as down in Nicaragua would argue that double jeopardy attaches -- our position is that it doesn’t attach, it’s a separate country, and he could be tried here. But the decision obviously won’t be made by me if he continues his 30-year sentence, but the family would be contacted, and we would want their input on to whether you would bring this guy back to the United States."
For Karen Anderson, the grief never stops. But she’s channeled her pain into pushing for change, and said she’s on a "mission to bring awareness to femicide."
Haley Anderson's friend Melanie Heney said she started volunteering at RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
"I hope that I’ve saved at least one person from a situation like Haley’s," she said.
“There was so much more of life for Haley to live,” her mom said. "She’s never coming home, and that is the saddest part."
