Costa Rica
San Lucas Prison is Costa Rica’s blood-inked “Alcatraz.” Located on Isla San Lucas, a two-square mile island ringed with pristine beaches and lush jungle, the infamous prison is set in the heart of the shark-infested Gulf of Nicoya. For more than 100-years, violent criminals and political prisoners as young as 14- or 15-years old were incarcerated in this hellish paradise. Stories of rape, murder, and torture haunt the island and violent artwork – the most notorious being the blood-inked “The Woman in the Red Bikini” – scar cell walls.
Calle De La Amargura, Isla San Lucas’s main thoroughfare, connects the jetty where prisoners were dropped off to the prison yards, the commissary, offices and a restored (but often locked) church, 2017
San Lucas prison’s crumbling hospital, located near the jetty, hasn’t survived the island’s sultry climate and is slowly succumbing to tropical decay
The prison hospital, located near Isla San Lucas’ ferry jetty
Inside one of the prison’s food preparation and storage areas
Maximum security cells surround the courtyard, like bicycle spokes. The heart of the courtyard is “The Hole,” a heat and sensory deprivation punishment chamber repurposed from an underground water cistern
The main opening to The Hole. When in use, the cistern’s round openings were capped and a four-inch porthole was the only way for light and air to penetrate the inky darkness. The Hole was decommissioned in 1950
The main opening to The Hole. When in use, the cistern’s round openings were capped and a four-inch porthole was the only way for light and air to penetrate the inky darkness. The Hole was decommissioned in 1950
Prison art in a maximum-security cell. Cell walls are covered in risqué sexual imagery, including homoerotic drawings.
Inside a medium security cell. "The Woman in the Red Bikini," and "La Chica Consuelo" are the prison’s most notorious murals. In the 1960s or ’70s, a prison nurse was raped in the dispensary by an inmate who escaped this cell. Other inmates followed and 75 prisoners ended up raping the victim before her violent death. After she was dead, a prisoner cut off her breasts and removed her liver. The bloody pieces were given to the artist who drew the infamous picture using her blood for the bikini top and bottom. Notice her hands. The artist, whose images adorn cell walls throughout the prison, could not draw hands
A detail shot of the blood-inked Woman in the Red Bikini mural
A scarred maximum-security cell wall etched with images of Nazism, Jesus, the devil, and sex
The decaying ex-prison laundry
The jetty on Isla San Lucas, where all prisoners passed through upon arrival