Transcript
This podcast contains conversations about violence, death, sexual assault and includes explicit language. Please take care while listening to cats. This is part seven of an on the ground investigation into the mysterious deaths of Chris Kramers and the sand frozen two young women who died in the jungles of Panama in 2014. What happened to Chris in the San? Was it a hiking accident, a double murder or something else altogether? I'm Mary, I'm at the initial in this series, I traveled to the small town of book8 there with Jeremy Craig from the Daily Beast to reinvestigate this case eight years later. After speaking with Marguerita, the mother of the murdered Osman Valenzuela, we take a breath and re-evaluate where we are in our investigation. For the first time, we have a complete salient theory of the deaths, of course, in Lausanne, what happened and who's involved? And it seems to account for all of the loose ends. Margarita says the Christian Wassan were intercepted on their beneath the hike by members of a local Bandido, a group of guys specifically Tito Edwin Morales and Quotable. She says they were then brought back to Quiros House in Palo Alto, where they were assaulted and killed. The story seems more than convincing. It lines up with a disturbing pattern of femicide in the region, and it fits the evidence found a secret trail connecting the middle child to Palo Alto, where all lives. That's how Chris on the sand could have made it to wearables house unseen. And we spotted a mango tree in Quiroz yard, where Marguerita says the women were buried. If the women were killed and dismembered in Palo Alto and their murderers planted only a fraction of the remains in the jungle, that could explain why so few of their bones were recovered. And if Feliciano son Tito is involved, it makes sense that Feliciano is everywhere, because what Marguerite was talking about is a cover up. Margarita says not only did the Banda murder these women, they also faked phone calls, staged the night photos and then scattered select remains in the jungle in an effort to throw investigators off the trail. Margarita can't be the only one in town who knows something about this, but who's going to talk to us? People have told us they've been threatened. And what about Osman Modus? The taxi driver? People have died. Is there a first hand witness left alive who will speak with us? From Cass Media, this is lost in Panama. An investigative series about the mysterious deaths of Chris Kramers and the San Fran. I'm Maria. Ambience ensue. This is episode seven eldest Theo. Subscribe to Cast Plus, where you can listen, add free and check out our Lost in Panama aftershow episodes where Jeremy and I sit down to dissect this case in far more detail than we're able to get into the main show. There's so much more to talk about here rabbit trails we didn't have time for, and Jeremy and I dig deep in these aftershow episodes to listen to them. Just go to cast media.com/ cast plus. If Chris were murdered, like Marguerita told us, that means their murderers went to great lengths to make it look like a hiking accident. And the question we keep coming back to is could this group of guys, this band leader, have pulled off an elaborate cover up like this? We call Claire Ferguson, who's an expert in staged homicide at Australia's Queensland University of Technology, to help us out. So I'm a forensic criminologist. Most of my research portfolio surrounds homicides that have been staged or concealed to look like another type of death. Claire explains the basics of staging a homicide. She says staging goes a step beyond just covering it up. They're not just obscuring what actually happened. They're trying to set investigators, you know, on a wild goose chase, basically. We ask Claire about the Bandidos possible manipulation of the phones and camera, she says. Sure, it's very common for offenders to delete incriminating data from victim's devices. Crime scene staging 101 is deleting things from phones. Many offenders do that. They know that that's sort of first port of call in terms of an investigation is going through a victim's phone. In terms of like planting things on the phone, you would see offenders pretending to be the victim so that it obscures that timeline of when the person was last seen alive. That's exactly what we were told. These guys did. Deleted photos from the camera and then staged a failed emergency calls over the course of three days to make it look like Christmas and got lost in the jungle. But Claire says there's a problem it has to do with the timing of the initial calls. So the last picture that we have on their camera is at about one fifty four pm and the first emergency call happens at 4:30 nine p.m. local time. Yeah. So that would make sense in an innocent scenario, like an accident. That gives Chris on the saying two or three hours to run into a problem in the jungle, try to fix it on their own and then call for help twice, once from Chris's phone. And then 12 minutes later from sounds. But in a homicide scenario, this timeline makes less sense. So if the thinking is that they are OK at five to two and then by 4:30, there are not two and a half three hours to abduct sexually assault, murder and start thinking clearly about cover up is not a lot of time. Claire's, right, it's not a lot of time, and it doesn't match the timeline. So according to Marguerita, Chris and the sand were intercepted on the trail and walked with the panda to Palo Alto, likely via the battery macho trail. But the Battye Immature takes at least three hours to traverse, and that's if you're huffing it now that I think of it. No way or Chris on the sand at Queremos House by 4:30 nine p.m. So these emergency calls, in all likelihood, were made when Chris and the sand were still in the jungle before a crime was even committed. Claire says for a cover up to start before a murder even occurs, that's highly unusual. Staging typically happens after a crime has taken place. They've killed the victim, they're cooling down a little bit and they're now able to start thinking about, Oh no, how do we create a scenario that isn't going to end with us being in prison? But the phone logs tell another story. Those calls were probably made before they got back to the house. That leaves really only two options. One is that Chris in the sand knew they were in trouble and somehow both independently managed to sneak off and try to call for help. The other possibility is premeditation that someone in the band year made the calls on purpose. So this would require some level of forethought and planning, and it also means that from the jump they had bad intentions for Christmas and right, because on the trail already they are making precipitating for to make costs. Eight failed calls were logged over the course of three days for making those calls. Sounds doable, actually. Back at Guido's, we lost reception about 100 yards from the house. That's not much of a hike. We were told that they have knowledge of the wilderness area and that they deliberately made the calls because they knew there was no signal as part of the staging process. But what about the night photos? Marguerita says the night photos were taken by Edwin to throw investigators off track, but would Edwin have really spent three hours in the jungle in the rain, taking 100 pictures of a bunch of rocks just to confuse police? Who does that? And what about photo five eight zero? It sure looks like that's Chris's head in that photo. And let's just say it. It doesn't look like a picture of someone who suffered a severe beating and was then burying the bag for a week, which is what Marguerita says happened. The hair looks clean. There are no obvious signs of trauma. Did the bandage really stage this photo of Chris after she'd perhaps been dead for days? Now, that's an incredible detail to think of if you're faking those pictures, right, like that really is moriarity s**t right there. But I mean, you could do it if you, you know, if you had her hair, which is just a terribly gruesome thought. But yeah. Claire says when a group of people commits a crime, they typically don't engage in this level of subterfuge that is generally not the type of offender group that's going to bother with staging. What you commonly see in those cases would be just trying to hide the body completely and forever. That brings us to the scattered remains, and, of course, the backpack discovered in fairly decent condition. Two months after the women disappeared, Claire finds it odd that the offenders would go to the trouble to plant this evidence. Two months after a hypothetical crime, assuming the bodies in the backpack had been successfully concealed up to that point, unless they are being suspected and they know that they're being suspected, what benefit is there in moving the materials from a place they can protect to a place that they can't protect? Given that risk? So it's possible the panda did think they were being suspected. Maybe they got spooked by the investigation and decided to plant the evidence in the jungle. Still, Claire is not convinced that additional folks like Itamar and Lewis, who discovered the backpack would be roped into the conspiracy after the fact. That's just a lot of people in on one secret, Claire says you wouldn't see a group of four people commit a crime and then recruit another two to also be involved in the staging or in like subterfuge. The more Claire pokes holes in the homicide theory, the more it gets me thinking. Did these guys really think that far ahead? We're talking about premeditating a sophisticated cover up before the actual crime was even committed. Think about it. If the bandages stage these calls and photos, that means they were already preparing for the phones and camera to be found. Who thinks of something like that on the spot? Have you experienced cases where ordinary seeming perpetrators are able to pull off really complicated staging events? No, and I haven't seen any type of like advanced manipulation of electronic data like that. It's just not the type of thing that these offenders do. Hmm. So after talking with Claire, it's looking harder and harder to accept certain details of Marguerita story, particularly how she says the Bundy just staged the scene. The manipulation of the phones and the camera, the deliberate planting of the backpack and the remains, it just seems unlikely that this group of 20-Something guys from the neighborhood would be criminal masterminds. But then again, how much thought does it really take to realize two tourists are going to be missed? And you might have to start creating a false trail. Sure, women go missing in the stretch of Panama all the time. But two young white European tourists that was sure to call attention. Here's the thing, if Marguerita story is true, then the only people who know for certain what happened in that house are Edwin Tito and equitable. It's highly unlikely we'll get any intel out of these men. We've already met Edwin, the smart one, the ringleader, the octopus, who apparently knows where to find weed. We've heard Tito might be a violent drunk. I don't know that we want to get near him. I especially wouldn't want to run into him in a bar. And quite a while. Well, it's his house. He was probably watching TV when Jeremy was sneaking around looking for a mango tree in his yard. That leaves one more potential eyewitness. Our last hope at figuring out what happened. The indigenous man who works for the Queer Vote series and family also assisted with digging the grave to be nice. To find that gentleman, it would be nice to find him. He's also the likeliest to come clean for a few reasons. First off, there's a big difference between participating in a crime and helping to cover it up. He wasn't involved in the alleged sexual assault or murder, of course, in Lausanne, so he has less to fear by coming forward, especially if he felt threatened or pressured to participate as an employee of Quotables family. It's likely he would be able to cut a deal and get protection. But first, we need to figure out who this guy is. Thanks for listening to Lost in Panama. We hope the story means as much to you as it does to us. We'd really appreciate it if you subscribed, rated and reviewed us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Gracias. Thanks so much. We've got a very different kind of sponsor for this episode. The Jordan Harbinger Show, a podcast you should definitely check out since you're a fan of high quality, fascinating podcasts hosted by interesting people. Listen, this show covers such a wide range of topics through weekly interviews with heavy hitting guests, but also other topics. For example, is marriage impaired by emotional affairs? There's a lot more to marriage than meets the eye that is just not talked about, and in episodes like this, you will get that kind of a discussion. And then in that vein, since I am dating again, Jordan has an episode about how to protect yourself from narcissists. So there's honestly an episode for everyone, though no matter what you're into. 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What she said was the following a local native man confessed to his aunt he'd supposedly seen at the house where they had called and to clean. There was a table full of blood. They never told them what it was, that it was nothing he hit on. The bars were closed and the table was full of blood. In a house in budget, they resemble Katie. That's it, that's all our guy knows. But he puts us on to another local who might know more about this mysterious witness. We had to his ranch to go talk to him. Definitely not. You're saying, Oh la la. Our interview gets off to a rocky start. Well, I'll tell you the truth when it comes to the Dutch girls, I don't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about it because he says the pandemic has already killed plenty of people in town. One of the long chats, one of them was AUSMIN. That guy, he was one of the good ones. And any time there was a party, he was there and that guy, they killed him. They hit him with a rock. The taxi driver they do around him, the last person they killed, who was a friend of theirs. They passed the car over him forward, backwards, forward and backwards many times. And hello and goodbye. He died, and that was it. It was a guy they called bodegas and model. After some back and forth, he agrees to talk with us and we assure him will disguise his identity in this interview. Ironically, he's not worried for his own safety. He's worried about the safety of his family and what he would have to do if they were harmed. Do you think I have a family issue? Let's say they killed one of my children or grandchildren, and I know it's one of them. I know myself. I would have to kill all of Henry's family and really matter to handle. Henry, that's Tito Henry, how Henry is a friend of mine. Well, I know him. Yes. He's a horrible person. He's crazy. He's a violent person. He also knows Edwin Lester, whom they meant as well. He's demented. That guy, he's rotten. That man is damn. She's always on drugs. They are all. We press him for a more complete list of who was involved in the deaths of Chris in the Sam Hendry, this fabulous on a guy who is dark skinned and very tall, they call him some John. He names Tito, Edwin and Sam John, but not more gas and not says that équitable. No, no, sister. No, no, not that guy. But those other people I mentioned. Yes. So this is a slightly different cast of characters. But what he goes on to tell us mostly matches, one Margarita says. That members of the band abducted Chris in the Sam and murdered them is one big difference. The location of the house where it happened, he says curse in the sand weren't killed at Queremos House in Palo Alto. The crime went down at a property owned by Wait For It. Feliciano and other in one of the houses they have around here by Prometio. They have those girls. They supposedly kill the girls a second or third. They they had them. We ask, Is he sure this didn't happen in a house in Palo Alto? No, no. That stuff about Palo Alto, no, that's a lie. Don't waste your time on that hypothesis. They were never in Palo Alto. Those women had nothing to do with battery module. Nothing. This is a little frustrating, but a lot of the questions we had about Marguerita story, those actually make more sense with this alternate location. If Chris and the sand were held in a house in the cooler area near where Feliciano Farm is. That would explain how the remains got out there, and it's well out of cell service range, which means the women could have had their phones for days and made doomed calls for help on April 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the night photos. We're still not sure where they were taken, but they were deep in the jungle, probably closer to Feliciano Farm than Palo Alto. Is it possible that Marguerita was mistaken about where this took place? Jeremy and I whisper about it during the interview. The house, the other house. This is the one thing that doesn't coincide. I know. But after that, his story of what happened matches margaritas, almost exactly this icky condition, people, they say those guys went crazy over the girls. I imagine it was Henry because Henry is the crazies of the mall. Henry and the Saracen mortally wounded. They killed one, then the other and cut them into pieces. They say they had them in black bags and after killing them to piece them up and put them in bags. Only crazy people do that alone. The local. This matches Margarita Story Point, four point. And then enter the mysterious witness who Margarita told us she was called to clean up the mess. Intrinsic ones. In the end, when the indigenous man enters, he sees blood all over the floor and when he sees blood, he ask. This is from a hunt. From where? Where's the meat? All of a sudden he sees the bag and he opens it, and that's when he finds the head of one of the girls when he does that. Obviously, he's shocked. Henry tells him, if you talk, will kill you to see able to come into my farm. We ask how he knows this. Who told him? Well, he says the Ingabire Boogieman first told his sister. You got. I doubt it when he comes to his sister, scared. He tells his sister what happened. He tells his sister that they were going to kill him if he said anything. But his sister didn't keep it under wraps. She told some of her colleagues accompany him. And from there, it spread. That's how he found out. And he knows more, he says. And Gabby Boogieman still lives nearby in the jungle near ITRE Romero. And if we can get to him, he's our best shot at cracking this case. Yes, he's the only person that can open this Dhamaal family. I'm more than ready to go talk to this guy. But how do we get to him? Meet a lonely conformal? I don't mean, look, the only way you're going to get information out of this guy is to do something like a kidnapping. You have to extract him. Get them out of there. Assure him nothing will happen to him. And what's more, incentivise him to give him a deal or something like that. So he helps out. So who can we send to go get him? Then they don't get rappers or people like me would have to go there and take him out of there. I could go there and bring him. But can you imagine the problems I'm going to by myself by doing that? Get another local, he says. So we head to the house of a local Ingabire Bugler guide by Albino Somerville, who knows that part of the Colorado and might know where to find our witness. Balbina is a well-liked person in his community. Contagious Lee Jolly often wears a cowboy hat and has a strong stature with a round belly. Not to mention, he's a talented horse rider will be no easy, easy, easy, easy now. Turns out, Balbina knows exactly who we're talking about, this mysterious garbage boogeyman. In fact, he helped track him down once before. He says that back in 2014, he was a guide for the Panamanian Justice Department. You were a guide for the Justice Department. Can you tell us what happened? Hold on ! The head of the Justice Department, Dominique Waldorf, sent Belbita with two agents. She said 093 with. To interrogate, they found him near Feliciano Farm. What happened when they tried to talk with him again to get violent through Easter? Miguel Gonzalez Felicio Village Animals Alex Feliciano Gonzalez showed up during the interrogation, said he was very angry. The El Paso Gate I entered normally, but one day we all go in and say El Mahola is temperamental. At first, he thought they were just regular citizens and his temper was on full display. But then he saw their badges and he toned it down a little bit. What did he actually say? It'll be okay, but none of us saw the castle as a castle just down the road. Are know? Why are you asking about this case? When this case is closed is what Feliciano said to the agents. Bulgaria could not be the one he wanted to cut short. The interview with the interrogation would. And it sounds like Feliciano was successful. He ended the interview and ordered the agents off his property. When will kill is going to win them? We are Cooper. He's a very smart man, a novice in opposing counsel, peligroso selling, low value. OK, I can't exactly say he's dangerous, but there's something about him. See U.S.-U.K. Our battle a Feliciano simple looking into real Panigale quality. He thinks. Knows something. The C.I.A. doesn't want him to talk. But I mean, you know, I remember the fake, he said with the air after you got a Paul says there's no such thing as the perfect crime and that we should continue to investigate until we find out the truth. Baldino is convinced this and Gary Boogieman knows something. Something Feliciano doesn't want to get out. And both Marguerita and our anonymous source have said this man witnessed the crime scene. It feels like we're getting very close. I find the murder scenario much more compelling than I did two weeks ago. I mean, I feel like we have much more specific information. That's maybe a better way to say, Oh, it's a great Spanish saying see in real that is could be arrested by the river, makes, you know, sounds and noises is because there's rocks underneath, you know, moving along. So you know what? We the English equivalent to that, probably where there's smoke, there's fire. Yes. Our guide agrees to go out on horseback to find our witness. Before he leaves for the jungle, we craft a letter explaining that the government can protect him if he talks that he won't be convicted if he gives testimony about the alleged crime. Then we wait. It could take days for our guy to find him and report back. Meanwhile, our meeting with Balbina means we need to double back on something else. It sounds like the Justice Department already tried to interview this witness back in 2014. 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And we have altered his voice as well. So I have one year before I retire, and obviously I'm putting my whole career at risk. I'm not here for you. I'm here for them because I want justice for them, because I have daughters. I live here and it's hard to hear this over and over and have your hands tied to not be able to do anything we tell him. We've heard rumors that Chris and the San were seen with a group of guys from around town. Maybe at a house in the Galera or in Palo Alto. Does he remember anything from the investigation that might corroborate that what he says shocks US local media? The community knows about this information that the Dutch girls were at a party in the area of Palo Alto in a house, a cabin in a precarious condition, a cabin. Well, not a nice one. And that at the cabin there was consumption of alcohol and consumption of drugs. Are we hearing this correctly? The police knew about this party in 2014. This detective who was working on the case at the time says an informant approached police with details about the party who was there and what went down. We don't see. I don't believe certain things got out of hand for the people who were at the party with the Dutch girls. The missing girls are used to Europe and certain things happened, which resulted in this whole numbers of sex, drugs, music. That's the information that was circulating around. We ask him who was there? Sue Simmons, yes, names were mentioned such as Sabra Songs on June Sam John Morgan's the son of Feliciano, who is a tour guide, and he was even the same tour guide who was going to take the Dutch girls to the places they agreed on. He just named the same guys, the same band we've heard about from several others at this point, the same guys we've been investigating all along. This isn't just neighborhood gossip. This isn't a grieving mother offering a possible motive for the murder of her son. This is a cop, a police officer who worked on this very case corroborating significant elements of the story. He says it should all be in the report from the Liberty local metropole to the investigator, and another person prepared a report and submitted it to the public ministry to make sure they mention these names. These names mentioned places, mention dates, mentioned events of how the party actually took place. So a full report. A report naming Edwin Sam, John Moore, Tagus and Tito as partying with the Dutch women in Palo Alto was submitted to the prosecutor's office. Wow. So there should be an official record that matches what Marguerita and our anonymous sources have told us about Chris in the sand partying with the band. The. But here's the thing. We've scoured the 3000 page case file for this report, and it isn't there. How could this be? We asked the cop what could have happened to it. He says when the report was submitted, it was obvious the prosecutor's office wasn't super happy about it. The ones I've been through, they were unsatisfied with the report because it went against the main line of investigation. Well, what happened to it? That's a good question. It would be interesting to investigate if that report was incorporated into a larger file. I haven't had access to the report. It's with the prosecutor in charge. Where on earth is this report? It's a report that names the potential suspects and places them in a house in Palo Alto with Chris on the sand, the same house where the women may have died. But the detective says the prosecutor's office never pursued this line of investigation. Panamanian authorities officially closed the case about a year after Chris in the sand went missing. Accidental death dragged by the river. Case closed. No mention of these guys. It's like it never happened. But something did happen. Margaritas, son Osman was murdered. A police report was filed. And now it's missing. And this and Gab Suleyman in the Culebra, the one who works for Quiroz family, who knows what he saw? If we could produce this witness, if we could find this report, if we could put Margarita on the stand? Would that be enough to reopen this investigation? But he had a meeting with the government. Let's look at this like an investigator like lawyers. Make a prosecutor. I want to prove these people killed the Dutch girls. Number one, I bring this woman as a protected witness. Why do you think they killed your son? Because he was involved in this, this and this? No. To the information Mugabe gave her. Morgan has confessed to me before he died. This, this and this. However, if I have to be honest, if I go in front of a judge with that witness, the judge will tell me it's not enough to condemn this person. So we're left in the air because that's where we need a firsthand eyewitness. You know, the same man, our guide, who is out on horseback, is trying to locate and bring back to confess. He's the domino that can bring the rest of this case down. If we bring in the local indigenous man to interview and he says, yes, I was paid to clean the house on such and such date at such and such place and so on. I saw there was blood boiling. After all this time, scientific test can still be applied like luminol to determine if there's human blood, no matter how much they cleaned. This can be determined even if years have passed. After we leave the detective, we debrief stunned that he knows has always known about this party, which may have led to Chris in the sands deaths. The police officer's testimony is identical to Osmond's Mother Point four point payload folktale. As you know, fellows like the entire hair on my neck like stood up because so many things coincided. It was the fact that the girls were taken to this house in Palo Alto. The fact that there was drugs involved, the fact that there was Feliciano son is a suspect. While we wait for our guide to return from the Culebra, we look through the case file one more time for the missing police report about this party. We find nothing. But when we scan the case file for the names of the Bandidos members, we do find something else. In October of 2014, six months after a cross on the sand went missing. An anonymous informant told the cops that none other than Jose Manuel Mora's might have important intel about the case more or less the same guy who confessed to Marguerita that he was complicit in the murder of her son. So the cops followed up, they interviewed Modus Morris didn't confessed to being present for anyone's murder Osmonds or Chris in the sands or to ever having met Chris on the sand. But he did cast suspicion on the panda, specifically Tito. He said a group of guys in town, Tito Edwin and Sam John, might have something to do with their deaths. Here's an excerpt from the report summarizing the interview with more gas. He added that at the time the girls disappeared, Henry told him what the problem was, that they were lost and he was the last one to see them. According to the interviewee, he did not see Henry in the area until about six days later. And when he asked him where he had been, Henry told him that he had gone to his father's farm in Colorado to go for a walk, and when he asked him where he went in that log and we changed the subject. At the very end of the report, seemingly apropos of nothing, the anonymous informant who ratted out more gas gives a detailed description of a car. It's the car, he says Edwin has been seen driving around town in a double cabin red pickup truck with shiny silver rims and tinted windows. And that's it. Nothing more about this report was ever followed up on. This is, in fact, the only appearance of more gas in the case file before he died in that mysterious hidden run in March of 2015. We can't wait to hear from our guide who's gone off on horseback in search of our potential eyewitness. And after a few days go by, he arrives back and look at there with the report. Our guide says after traveling by car, by horse and by foot, he finally found him. Our witness in the Calera was killed by others Seymour Rigel. I look for what we call a ranch where they have a restaurant. I mean, they are there. I found the owner and I asked him about it since I knew him. I asked him where both. And he told me that he was in town. You get down from there. Our guide located the witness, explained our investigation and showed him our letter promising protection. Our guide says the witness immediately looked uncomfortable and the puzzled see more opens up. He got really pensive. He asked me if I wanted to know just to know or if I was working with you guys. You thought that on looking at those and he didn't want to talk to me facing me. Sometimes when I speak to people, I don't face them very much or show them my face either. But he almost always didn't show me his face. He talked to me, but always looking away, being the part of the law. But our guide was able to convince the witness to come to work today and tell us his story. Turns out our witness was planning to be in Bogota in a few days anyway. al-Mahdi. He told me that he was busy at the phone basin, but he had to go to work at there in a couple of days. He said he'd come to the interview and book it. He said he recovered his expenses. He would come without any problems that all were now seemingly inconvenient. When our guide tells us this, we're elated. Reschedule a meeting right away with the local DA's office ready to present our witness and ask them to reopen the case. Only then on the day of our appointment with the DEA, our witness doesn't show. Our guide frantically texts the witness, maybe he's been delayed coming in or needs directions to meet up with us. But when they finally get in touch, our witness has a flimsy excuse. I asked him why he hadn't come to work that day, and he said that he had come, but that according to him, he had forgotten he had to interview me. Honestly, I don't believe that he could have forgotten that they're texting him and all that and asking him if he was coming or not. Unleash the lawyers who prove to me it's like he was afraid to talk in. To and more, but I've loved. Our guide says he's not surprised our witness backed out. We're asking people to risk everything, even their lives, to speak with us. Our witness may have decided it wasn't worth it. See, if he is involved, he could lose his job. All of his trust of a lifetime. And that would be very disastrous emoji. This, I think, is afraid for his life and afraid of bracing in case he's known something for so long, it has not said anything. I would understand what the employee and. I think if he knows something, he isn't going to say anything since sorry wasn't allowed to see. Look, I get why he doesn't want to talk to us. But this whole run around makes me believe that he does know something that something terrible happened to Chris in the San. If he doesn't know anything. Why not just say that, why agree to this interview and then ghost us? He's the only person who can confirm or deny these rumors. He's our last hope at cracking this case and he won't talk, at least not now and not to us. Down a witness we go through with our meeting at the DA's office, anyway, when we get there, we learned that Panama has a new top prosecutor. But most of the other staff investigators were working out of this office when they ruled Chris in the sands deaths an accident. So what are we supposed to do? Brazen without evidence and demand, they reopen the case. Tell them they did an incomplete investigation lacking an eyewitness. There's not much we can say to convince them. They will laugh us out of the office, which is pretty much exactly what they do with our cleanup witness refusing to speak to us. We give it a final shot, but say that Beatty she was the top prosecutor when Christmasland went missing. The highest ranking official with the final word on this case. She would know what happened to the missing report. I mean, she could be the reason the report is missing, but maybe not. We just want to know what happened. We tried several times to contact her, but she declined to be interviewed. Well, sort of. She says she'd be happy to speak to us if she's compensated. No one else we spoke to for this podcast was compensated for an interview. And many people came forward at great personal risk out of a desire to get justice for Chris on the Sam. But I guess that wasn't enough motivation for bedside, though either she doesn't care, or maybe she's got something to hide. I guess there's no way of knowing. We're nearing the end of our reporting trip and look at them. We've been here for weeks and talked with dozens of people and gone way over budget on our trip. But I still feel so far away from knowing for sure what happened to Chris in the Sam. It's possible it was an accident that Chris in the Sand went beyond the middle order on April 1st and got off trail for some reason. They tried to call emergency services, but never regained cell reception. Search teams who never searched the jungle beyond the trail never found them. They eventually succumbed to the elements and the remains were scattered, probably by animals all along the Rio Culebra. But if that's what happened, how did Chris's one rib bone get bleached? How did missing photo five zero nine get deleted and why didn't the women leave any sort of note? Why did so many young men die mysteriously after Chris and the sand disappeared? And why are so many people in pocket they convinced this was a murder? It's also possible, Chris in the sand were assaulted and murdered victims of femicide, just like so many other women in the region. It's possible a group of guys, Amanda, intercepted them the day of their pianist to hike and killed them. It could be the same group of guys witnesses saw with Chris in the sand, at a discotheque, at a party in the park. But if it was murder, it was also an elaborate cover up. Staged photos, feigned cell phone use and the remains and backpack deliberately planted along the Rio Culebra. Is it really possible that this group of guys staged the perfect crime? Even after investigating all these theories of what may have occurred, we really don't know what actually happened to Chris and the Sam. So that's where we are. Lots of rumors around town, but nothing solid. A missing police report that was never filed and a potential witness who won't speak to us without a witness. We're pretty much out of luck reopening this case. We're not even sure what we believe. On one of our last days and look at the Jeremy walks into a bar hoping to meet with a source. And who should he see drinking alone with Henry Tito Gonzalez himself? We've been afraid to meet this guy who's at the center of so much gossip, so many theories. But then he just appears. Jeremy sits down next to him and starts up a conversation. Tito, who is fairly well liquored up proves to be everything we've heard about him in town. He rudely mocks the bartender. He tells Jeremy about the best places in there to pick up young girls. And then Tito starts bragging about using his fists for violence, saying that with his left hand, he puts his victims in the hospital and with his right hand, he puts them in the graveyard. This from the same man who may have beat Chris to death with his bare hands for resisting his sexual assault. Jeremy makes plans to meet Tito the next night for an evening on the town, hoping this will give him more time to prepare his approach. But before Jeremy has the chance, Tito stops responding to our text messages and fails to show the next night. So we never have a chance to ask him about his involvement with Chris in the San. We pack our things, Titos in the wind. A free man may be an innocent man, may be a guilty man. Maybe something in between. What happened to Chris in the sand is still a mystery. But this case is just one of dozens, even hundreds of unsolved disappearances and deaths of women and girls in this part of Panama. And it's not just Panama. Femicide is rampant in Latin America. Out of the 25 worst countries in the world for femicide, 14 of them are found in this region. Chris, in the sand were two European women, white women. Their story needs to be told and their case needs to be solved. But what about the women of color who regularly go missing here? Like Stephanie Rodriguez, the 35 year old woman who was murdered by her neighbor just days before we arrived, or the 19 year old who went missing that same week, or Tamara Carpenter, who also disappeared from that same area, he was found murdered 24 hours later. Tamara was 13. She was pregnant, who seeks justice for these victims. I hope that this story, this podcast, this investigation can help bring attention to the larger problem of femicide in this part of the world. Someone in this town knows something about what happened, of course, in the sand. If you're listening, please come forward. Porter sister-in-law Carolyn Farquharson, the same four will get there for the women who go missing in Latin America every single day. We won't stop until we know what happened. Until then? These mountains hold a lot of secrets. Lost in Panama is hosted by me, Mariama Beans, you were the original reporting by Jeremy Cray and Mariama Bansal, chief investigative correspondent. Jeremy Cripe, written by Jeremy Cripe and Trent Kay Maverick, produced by Trent Kay Maverick, executive producers Colin Thompson, Julianne, five, and Jeremy Credit supervising producer T.J Lubell, co-producer Mona Husson, associate producer Lenora Quinonez, translator Lenora Quinonez. Editing by Stephen Bettis, Anton Doty and Alex Gonzalez. Mixing and mastering by Matt Sole. Voice actors Christina Will, Cesar Castillo, Matteo Miya and Robert Sosa. Travel and logistics coordinator Brock McArthur on On-Site Audio Recording by Richard Carlos on Slide Photography by Luis EGA got us the original music written by Colin Thompson orchestration arrangement and additional compositions by Andrew Gallego and Jesse Hogan. Music recorded at the resort studios. Music engineered by Kayla Morris, assistant engineer Jordan DiDonato. Instrumentalists Matt or Bass Fell Glen, Laura Beadle, Jennifer Woo, John Paul Bajan, Sam Solorzano, Jesse Horgan and Trevor Gomez. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions, an eight p.m. Cover Art by Paul Entous, Special Assistance by Elizabeth Munoz, who are the Friday with only Pamela Solo that amaro made Alejandro Madrid, Rodriguez, Antonio Kiddos, Balbina Sam, Museo Max. They are less Robida and ADMET, which are really very special thanks to Susan Rosica. Cats subscribe to Cast Plus Tillis and ad free with bonus episodes at Cass Media.com/ cast. Plus listen to this podcast ad free on Amazon Music.
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