College Golf Champion Celia Barquin Arozamena Was Murdered Monday While on the Course

Photo credit: Icon Sportswire - Getty Images
Photo credit: Icon Sportswire - Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

Iowa State University student athlete Celia Barquin Arozamena, 22, was killed on Monday while golfing in Ames, Iowa. Other golfers found a bag with clubs but no one was around to claim it, so they called the police. Golf course staff found her body with stab wounds to the upper torso, head, and neck.

Police arrested Collin Daniel Richards, 22, for the crime, and he's been charged with first-degree murder. The police described him as homeless.

Ames PD officials were able to speak to someone who had been living near Richards in a wooded area close to the course. That person claimed to have heard Richards say he had the urge to "rape and kill" women.

While in that wooded area, Richards approached the police and they brought him to the station, where he told them he'd gone to someone else's house to bathe that day. Police then went and spoke to those people, who described Richards as looking "disheveled and covered with blood, sand and water,” Police Commander Geoff Huff said in a press conference on Tuesday.

The Ames police had encounters with him in the past. As of right now he is the only suspect. The murder happened in the middle of the day, when Barquin Arozamena was golfing alone.

“It is really troubling that something like that would happen in broad daylight out in the middle of an area that is easily seen from a lot of locations,” Huff said. “It is extremely troubling.”

Barquin Arozamena, born in Spain, was studying civil engineering at Iowa State. She played on the golf team and won the school's Female Athlete of the Year award. She was ranked 69th nationally by Golfweek, according to CBS.

"We will never forget her competitive drive to be the best and her passion for life," head coach Christie Martens said in a statement.

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