Did a hitman kill a New York gallerist? Art world rocked by murder-for-hire trial
Brent Sikkema, a prominent New York art gallerist, was allegedly murdered by a hitman in his Rio de Janeiro home in January 2024. His estranged husband, Daniel Sikkema, is on trial for allegedly orchestrating the killing amid a bitter divorce and financial disputes. The case has shocked the art world and revealed disturbing voice notes and messages suggesting motive.
- ▪Brent Sikkema was stabbed 18 times in his Rio de Janeiro townhouse in January 2024, according to court allegations.
- ▪Alejandro Triana Prevez, the alleged hitman, was arrested days after the murder and claimed Daniel Sikkema plotted the killing.
- ▪Prosecutors presented voice notes and messages in which Daniel Sikkema expressed frustration with his husband's refusal to die and demanded $6 million.
- ▪Daniel Sikkema is on trial for murder-for-hire in Manhattan federal court, facing charges related to the alleged plot.
- ▪Brent Sikkema co-founded Sikkema Jenkins & Co, a leading gallery known for representing diverse contemporary artists, including Kara Walker and Jeffrey Gibson.
The Guardian — US files mainly under news. We currently carry 539 of its stories.
Story provenance
Source · retrieval · rights · ranking — open for full record
inspect →
Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | The Guardian — US |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/17/brent-daniel-sikkema-trial-murder-for-hire-trial |
| Publication time | Sun, 17 May 2026 13:00:40 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-17T13:12:13.119Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-17T13:12:13.119Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | pr11hWgArI_M |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Brent Sikkema attend House of Hennessy Presents Secret Americana: Jean-Michel Othoniel’s First Solo Exhibition in New York at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. on March 6, 2008 in New York City. Photograph: Will Ragozzino/Patrick McMullan via Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBrent Sikkema attend House of Hennessy Presents Secret Americana: Jean-Michel Othoniel’s First Solo Exhibition in New York at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. on March 6, 2008 in New York City. Photograph: Will Ragozzino/Patrick McMullan via Getty ImagesNew YorkDid a hitman kill a New York gallerist? Art world rocked by murder-for-hire trialDaniel Sikkema is accused of hiring someone to kill his husband, Brent Sikkema, amid a divorce and alleged fights over moneyVictoria BekiempisSun 17 May 2026 09.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 May 2026…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — US.
Discussion
0 commentsMore from The Guardian — US
