Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
See No Evil on ID will look into Omar Medina’s disappearance and subsequent murder case from 2017. The upcoming episode titled “Body in a Barrel” will air on the network this Wednesday, January 31, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET.
The official synopsis of the See No Evil episode reads, “In 2017, in San Diego, 28-year-old musician Omar Medina goes missing; his family’s worst fears are confirmed when his body turns up in a barrel floating in the bay; police turn to surveillance footage to track down the people responsible.”
According to Fox 59, Medina disappeared on September 30 of that year. His sister, Alicia Villegas, was the last person to see him alive. On October 12, a diver found a 55-gallon barrel consisting of Medina’s badly decomposed remains floating in the San Diego Bay. The barrel was attached to a chain and weighed down by an underwater concrete block. Investigators revealed that the victim had been stabbed 66 times.
Eventually, authorities arrested two suspects—Derrick Spurgeon and Timothy Cook—for their roles in Medina’s murder. Cook faced murder charges, while Spurgeon faced charges for helping dispose of the body, as per Times of San Diego.
Who were the two suspects in Omar Medina’s murder case?
Omar Medina went missing on September 30, 2017. Not long after, Medina’s family filed a missing person’s report when they failed to get in touch with him. Times of San Diego reported that his unlocked car was found about a week later on Oaklawn Avenue, not far from the home he shared with his housemate Timothy Cook.
On October 12, 2017, a diver made the discovery of Medina’s decomposing body inside a metal barrel floating in San Diego Bay. NBC 7 San Diego stated that the diver found the barrel with a hazard tag and a wireline attached to it. He then called the harbor police, who pulled the object ashore and found his body inside. They were only able to identify the corpse in late November after an autopsy. Medical examiners said that the killer stabbed him 66 times.
NBC 7 San Diego reported that three weeks later, police arrested Omar Medina’s housemate, Timothy Cook. They also arrested a second suspect named Derrick Spurgeon. They charged Cook with murder and Spurgeon with accessory to murder for driving the boat used to dump the victim’s body in San Diego Bay.
Times of San Diego stated that Cook stood trial in December 2019 when a jury convicted him of second-degree murder. District Attorney Cherie Somerville alleged that Cook killed Medina for financial gain. The accused wanted to gain access to around $84,000 the victim had received in a legal settlement. He received a sentence of 56 years to life in state prison.
The same jury, however, deadlocked Derrick Spurgeon’s accessory to murder after the fact trial. Cook reportedly recruited him to help dispose of the body. The two placed Medina’s remains in a barrel and then tossed it into the San Diego Bay. In January 2022, Spurgeon entered a plea deal for unlawfully disposing of a dead body. He then received six months in county jail, per NBC 7 San Diego.
See No Evil’s all-new episode on Omar Medina’s murder case from 2017 will air on January 31, 2024.