Transcript
This podcast contains conversations about violence, death, sexual assault and includes explicit language. Please take care while listening. Gets. This is part six of an on the ground investigation into the mysterious deaths of Chris Kramers and the sand thrown to a young women who died in the jungles of Panama in 2014. What happened to Chris in the sand? Was it a hiking accident, a double murder or something else altogether? I'm Marianna Things you in this series. I traveled to the small town of book8 there with Jeremy Krait from the Daily Beast to reinvestigate this case eight years later. For a key witness in a famous international mystery, Margarita Valenzuela doesn't exactly look the part. She's small and frail at 69. Her white hair is tied up neatly in a bun. When we meet her, she's dressed in a prim and simple gray skirt and navy blue cardigan. Her hands are a bit unsteady and so is her gait. But there is something in her eyes that belies her age. They are deep, set and keen and piercing like the eyes of a hawk. And when she starts to speak about the death of her son, Osman Valenzuela, who was just 22 when police say he was murdered in 2014. Those eyes begin to burn with such intensity that it is hard to meet her gaze. Margarita is at our hotel in Boca at the at the request of Martin Ferrara, the private eye who has been assisting with our investigation. She promises to tell not only how and why Osman was killed, but also to connect his murder to the deaths, of course, on the SAM. At first, Margaret was reluctant to talk to us. But she doesn't seem afraid. She's angry, angry that the police haven't brought her son's killers to justice. Angry that all we're doing is talking to her. Talking won't help her situation. Talking won't keep her safe. Blazingly per year, you put yourself in my shoes to give a statement and left me adrift. Don't you know what a ship the truth is like? I feel like I'm giving, I'm given, I'm giving, and I never see anything. How can I have faith in you that I would really see something that I would see the light at the end of the tunnel? I will allow them to live. Marguerita says that since her son died, was murdered, she's been threatened. That she fears for her safety and the safety of her other children. She says the people who did this are the same group of young men, the same band we've been investigating for their ties to Chris in the San. These men live in town. They're her neighbors, and she has nowhere else to go. She says members of the Panda even crashed the rosary held for her son Osman, a time last. We were doing the rosary for my son. That's when Edwin said Marcus, to throw stones at my house in terms of what it was like to scare us to say, if we talk, I can't. That's why, if you ask me, I would say, I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know anything. Another Jonas in another. She could be putting herself and her family in danger. Speaking with us. You being threatened, my daughter. Uh-Huh. Hey, tell my daughter. Tell your mother not to talk about us and the girls because we were killed you. Can you imagine when no one is home? They burned my house or kill me? Are they coming? What can I do as my son tells me? Mom, do you think those people who look at your gray hair and think, Oh, she's just an old lady wouldn't do anything to her. They have no scruples with those girls. Do you think they're going to have it with me and they look on me in spite of the threats? Marguerita is determined to be heard. She tells us why she's willing to risk her safety, to share what she knows with us. Southern mothers of the young Dutch women rest in peace. And for my own son to rest in peace, can I put myself in the shoes of those two girls? What happened to these young women and to many other women? I know what they suffered. For Marguerita to come forward like this is an incredible act of bravery to talk with two foreign journalists about the death of her son and the death of these two Dutch women. It takes guts and grace. Marguerita is a smart woman. She knows this podcast will be published and she knows what could happen when word gets out that she talked. We'll do our best to protect her. But let's face it, her son was murdered, she says, to keep him quiet. But Marguerita won't keep quiet. Not until she gets justice for her son and for Chris in the same. From Cass Media, this is lost in Panama. An investigative series about the mysterious deaths of Chris Kramers and the Sand San. I'm Maria Martinez. This is episode six in La Casa de Liquido. 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 Medium.com slash cast plus. Listen to this podcast ad free on Amazon Music. Let's start with Margherita Sun Osman. Margarita says Osman was a good Christian boy, very involved with the church. He was good friends with a young woman in town named Milagros Spina. Margarita says that's where all the trouble started. Osman used to help out Milagros with caring for her young child, and Milagros got Osman a job working at a bar and restaurant with her in bucketing. Milagros was friends with the members of the band, the guys like Tito, Edwin Monegasque wearable, Sam John, and she introduced them to Osman. Margarita says that although Osman had gone to school with a lot of those guys, her son wasn't like them at all. He who I know my son was a young man who was very generous, very affectionate, very respectful. He was like that maybe because he was so trusting. That's why what happened to him happened to him. My son wasn't a bad kid. He liked to go to church at that time. He liked going to dances to impact things. That's not who my boy was. That luck, then boy who was there on the wrong day to kill somebody who. According to his autopsy report, Osbourne's cause of death was drowning. So police initially ruled his death a drowning accident, but investigators later changed the verdict to a crime of homicide after his mother, Margarita, challenged the report. Beryl quango, you'll sleep away from me in the morning when I went to see my son in the morning, but it won't do as much as I love books. Who has the band? Who did the autopsy for Camille? Ian LaMarca Haki Why does my son have marks on his red hot unit? And honestly, you're not saying to do what you said, I'm eating. Marguerita says she saw bruises on Osmond's body that weren't mentioned in the autopsy report, and although it hadn't killed him, he'd also suffered a hemorrhagic contusion to the back of his head. In other words, he'd been hit in the head hard. See this, you know, persona, if someone says they're going to dive into the water, they are going to end up hitting their forehead for the rock. They are not going to throw themselves in back worse. No. The logical conclusion was he'd been smacked from behind and then dumped in the river to drown while unconscious water in his lungs means he was alive when he entered the river. But although the authorities ruled Osmond's death a murder. No arrests were ever made. Possibly. How is it possible that things were left like this and people say things back, but don't say anything? None of them. Marguerita tells us that she's known for years who killed her son. She points the finger at the local panda, the same guys who threw stones at her house during Osmond's rosary. The same group of guys Osman met through his job at the restaurant, a few bending little. They sell drugs. They sold cocaine and marijuana by powder, you know. But those people are powerful people from town. Marguerita names guys like Edwin Motorpress wearable, Sam John and Tito Feliciano son. She's known Tito since he was a teenager. He was with my son in high school and who was very problematic, boy. But Marguerita tells us the leader of the band is in Tito. It's Edwin Aguirre, the guy who was seen driving the red truck. People in town sometimes call him Saracen because of the chain of restaurants his family owns. But Marguerita says he has another nickname Il Gruppo the Octopus. But echo my point, why is he like an octopus? Because he's the one who manages the whole group. He's the one who distributes them. They are not his friends. He's the ringleader of everything that is sold. What is distributed. We've already learned that several witnesses reported seeing Chris in the sand with the band leader in the days before they disappeared at a nightclub, at a party buying drugs or in a red pickup truck driven by Edwin L. people. Marguerita says shortly after Chris and the San were reported missing her son, Osman said he had something important to tell her. So my son comes up to me and he says, Mom, you know something. Sit down, please. And I tell him, Tell me, and he searched me a cup of coffee. Osman said he was having some trouble with the young men in the panda that they'd threatened him. He may, he tells me, now they're telling me they're going to kill me. And so I asked him why he tells me, mom, because I saw the Dutch girls in the car. According to Marguerita, Osman was in bulk at this town square the day before Chris and Sam went missing. He saw a red pickup truck parked there, a pickup truck that Edwin Saracen Son was driving. One will handle parking when he got to the park. He saw the car. Who lives out of sight of the son of the cyber slave owning family? It was a red pickup truck. And in the back of the pickup truck, he saw Chris in the Sam Hollander sign up party earlier today in a cabinet address back in the rear seats of the cafe in the service of the owner, and each of them had a beer in their hands and they were smoking cigarettes in one block only. He didn't talk to them. You just saw them. But soon after this sighting, Chris, the Sam vanished. And soon after that, while Osman was at work late one night, his friend Milagros, the one who got him his job, told him something disturbing. She told him she knew Chris and the were dead. And that the panda was responsible. Milagro Pena Nieto, Osman, everything. What they did to the torchbearers, then the threats began. You may support a kid and you don't know how long this, a mum said, because they killed the Dutch girl's mother, intercellular uncle Milosevic got a hole on this. I mean, they went on about that because I saw them with the Dutch girls. They're going to kill me. I though the. And after that, two days later met that alumnae. They killed my son. Osman Valenzuela died on April 4th, 2014. That's two days after Chris and the Sand were reported missing. He was found dead, drowned, but with a severe head injury in the Typekit, the river near will get the. Margaret Thatcher was convinced he'd been murdered and that the bandleader had made good on their threat to kill him. But Margarita Wood and learn the whole truth about what happened to her son until almost a year later. That's when Morales, a member of the year, approached her outside a pool hall. Do any of the Mitro I was coming from work, he was standing at a pool hall. He said to me, I want to talk to you. Marguerita says Morgans was haunted by guilt because memories that you're not brittle. He told me, I can't sleep. I see your son in my dreams. He told me I can take it anymore. I need to talk about this. I need you to know the truth. So I told him to tell me with the. Margarita had long suspected Osman was murdered by the Bandido, just as he'd feared. But now she had confirmation. Moras confessed to Margarita. Yes, he was there. The panda killed her son. He had been present, complicit, a witness and an accomplice. He tells me, and I asked him why he says they killed him because he knew about two Dutch girls. Morgan told Marguerita how it happened. He said Osmond's friend Milagros, the same one who told them Chris Anderson had been murdered, invited Osman out to the river. She then alerted the panda that he would be there, and you get an idea of a group followed him to the river eels yesterday. Pietro Mirando asafoetida. But I, you see it is thorough. Estella looking out at the river Margarita says that's when the whole Banda arrived. And then Edwin the Octopus gave the order in which Jojo did several some ladies here. I love to Myrtle, he said. Kill him, but he does not sure who attacked her son. It could have been any of them or all of them. It could have even been more us himself. Yeah, that'll appear that he took up a rock deliberately hockey, and he hit him in the back of the head with it. Milk. My son fell. They equally, I don't know them or man with them, I'm sure he wasn't dead, A-list Tel Aviv, he was still alive. Give us a little more bureau the year Riverdale pointy little theorem and threw him from a bridge. Now that she knew the truth, Marguerita wanted more from mortar gas. It wasn't enough for her to hear his confession. She wanted the young men who did this in jail and she needed more gas to come clean about what he knew and what he had done. I tell them, I can't help you with your conscience. What I want is for you to come with me to the lawyer and give a declaration. She says Morgan was frightened he would end up dead just like Osman more, maybe with Margus told me this. I know that if I talk, they will kill me. And I told him they are not going to kill you, Marcus. We are going to go to the lawyer and you're going to tell them everything you have said. And he said to me, I agree you're totally acquittal. But before Morgan had a chance to tell his story to the authorities, he went out to celebrate his 22nd birthday in Syria elsewhere. That day, he goes to the cantina and starts drinking. Then Milagros was there. I gave his voice was there and Gonzalez, and they took him. And that's Milagros the same friend, who it sounds like may have betrayed Osman and Edwin and Tito. Margarita says after Morgan got drunk with them, he began to make very public confessions right there at the cantina, talking loudly about how they'd all killed Osman and Chris in the same book. He started talking, saying, Well, we killed Osman and we killed the Dutch girls because he was so drunk. Marguerita says members of the band quietly disappeared with more gas, got him out of the cantina, put him into a car and drove away. More gas would be found dead by the roadside. The next morning in what would appear to be a hit and run. 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 review deaths on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Gracias. Thanks so much. We hint that we've got a very different kind of sponsor for this episode. The Jordan Harbinger Show, which is a podcast you really should be listening to. And I know that every day somebody tells you that you just have to listen to some podcasts and you nod and say, Sure, Uh-Huh. And then you never listen to it. Don't let that happen here. 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Start your new language learning journey today with Babbel right now, get up to 55 percent off your subscription when you go to Babble.com slash Panama. That's Babble.com. Slash Panama for up to 55 percent off your subscription Babbel language for life. More of died in a suspicious hit and run accident in late March of 2015, just shy of a year after a cross in the sand disappeared. But before he was killed, Morgan confessed to Marguerita that he knew what happened to her son, Osman, and to christen the Sam because he was there when they were murdered. Morgan told Marguerita that he and the panda followed Chris in the sand in a red pickup truck before going after them in the jungle on foot. The panda knew where to find them. Chris on the Sand had taken a taxi to the Beneatha trailhead, and as the taxi was driving down more gas along with Edwin Tito and Équitable were in the red pickup truck driving up. Taxi driver, when the taxi driver is coming down, the guys into red truck arrive, they stop the taxi driver and ask him, Where did you live, the Dutch girls Lambie's. Police interviewed the taxi driver who brought Chris and listened to the Biyani. Actually, they interviewed him twice. He changed his story, fudging the date and time he dropped off the women, and he never mentioned anything about running into the panda on the way back to town. It didn't want to talk the first time they interviewed him, he says, I'll talk, but get me security so they can protect me because I know if I talk, they'll kill me. The taxi driver, his name is Leonardo Arturo Gonzalez, or should I say, was known out of the drowned in a shallow water in a river near Bukit on March 3rd, 2015. A few weeks before Morgan died in that suspicious hit and run. So another convenient accident for maybe another witness who could place the Bandidos members with Chris in the sand. And this time at the banister, Marguerita says Chris Anderson. We're surprised to run into the panda, but ultimately followed them back to town. Well, at first they were afraid because they didn't plan to meet those guys up there, but those guys tricked them. And you told them that they were coming back to show them the funeral, the limo. She says the band leader led them back to town on the pretense of checking out the beer that other scenic overlook near the banister. But instead, they walked for hours, finally arriving at querulous house in the neighborhood of Palo Alto. Wearable is one of the four guys who was there that day, according to Marguerita. And it was his house. They went to the party. In fact, Wearables House is the same house where Chris in the Sand may have partied before after buying weed from the Barnea. Margarita says once they got to the house, the men then gave Chris in the sand, a bunch of drugs and alcohol before things went sour. The gang, allegedly they were happy and then suddenly under the spell of euphoria. This man went crazy and they started grabbing the girls, and the girls didn't want to do anything. Margarita says the trouble started when Tito Feliciano, Son, started touching Chris, Chris struggled, tried to shake him off. Then she hit him. She hits him in the face. But why did she hit him? Because she didn't want him to rape her? That's logical. And that's when the ball hits her. That's when Tito attacked Chris. According to Marguerita, Tito completely lost it when he hit her, he knocked her over and throws her to the ground. And when she fell, he began to hit her and hit her. That's what Maurice told me when I asked Marcus, but what did he hit her with? He says with his fist. Did you know what it's like when a man hits a woman in the face? It's horrible. And think of the other young woman. This young woman sees what they're going to do, and she screams, Put in that house was going to hear her. There is no one around it. So that young woman died instantly from all the blows that man gave her and her friend. Her sister says that she threw herself on top of the other one and the same thing happened to her. That was when they hit the second one with a hammer. Well, that's how they got the other one in the same way. She was so disfigured when they all raped her, and it was like a massacre. There was a pool of blood. After the bandages realized what they had done, she says they had to cover it up somehow. She says Wearable called one of his employees and a bugler man from Alta Romero to help clean up the crime scene where pajama calls and indigenous men are quarreling and one who works for wearable. He was the one that cleaned where it was house full of a lot, you know, this hungry the young men, she alleges, then dismembered the bodies before burying the remains and black trash bags unquote. It was property una bolsa negra. Some black bags are large bags. That's where they put the Dutch girls. They were dismembered because they didn't all fit in. The back of the inquiry was very same for the girls are buried. And Greta says Morales told her the exact spot. They bury the bodies, and this is what Horgos tells me in a place that there is a mango tree far away from the house. I tell them that there are so many mango trees. Where am I going to find the right one? He told me, You won't miss it. She adds that after a couple of weeks had passed, the young men decided to scatter some strategic remains in the jungle to make it look like a hiking accident lay one quarter LPA. They cut her foot with his hot up and from their left leg. They threw it on the waters of the river like theater. That's what they throw in. The river is a look at these, and why did they do it to throw people off a trail off where they could have been? She says that's not all the men staged. She believes the emergency calls and the night photos were all faked. That is, Chris on the sand didn't make them. She says the young men confiscated both phones and made those calls themselves. Anyone in the media would have known how far from where was house they needed to walk in order to strategically lose reception. To make calls that wouldn't go through to make it look like Chris and listen were lost in the jungle. Morgan Letizia and Henry Marcus asks Henry. Are you calling? They are going to find out where these girls are. And he said, No, no, I know what I'm going to do. We are. She also says the young men tampered with the camera that it was Edwin who took the night photos. Last photo comparison in that neighborhood, and these are the photos that appear on the Dutch first camera were not taken by the Dutch girls point to one who took them was given. He says it is to throw people off the trail and missing. Photo five zero nine. The one that was mysteriously deleted from the camera's SD card, Angelita tells us the reason that photo was deleted was because it showed Tito and Edwin and thus could have implicated them. There is a single photo, which is the one they deleted or Henry comes out on and Saracens son, what's his name again? So with Chris in the sand buried in the backyard, a few of their bones strategically scattered and their phone and camera usage faked, this was the perfect crime. The only thing left to do was to make sure nobody talked, and that could be why we're left with so few witnesses, with only Marguerita willing to tell us what happened. We're stunned at the close of this interview. Marguerite was the first person to give us a complete theory of the crime. Names, dates, location. Who did it? Why? When? She says Edwin Tito, quite a will and more gas intercepted, Chris Ellison owned the bannister, led them to quotables house and killed them. They fake the phone calls. They took the pictures and they planted evidence in the jungle to make it look like a hiking accident. This is a new theory that finally accounts for all the evidence. It explains everything that doesn't line up about the phones and the camera. And Marguerita is putting herself in immense danger coming forward with this story. But it's all for the love of her son. I love him so much. Even if he's not here with me, but I want justice. I wake up every day at three a.m. and I stand in front of a picture of my son. And I said to him, one day court will grant you justice. You and I cry for him. You know, one day card will bring me justice, and one day we'll know where two Dutch girls are. We know what we have to do next. We have to go to the house where Margarita says the murders took place, where she says the bodies were buried. We have to see where querulous the House of the Crow. So again, the car and drive out to Palo Alto, a neighborhood on the outskirts of work at the. Martin, the private investigator offers to lead us there. He knows the neighborhood and can guide us, and better yet, he knows where to find where it was house. OK, vamos done Martin Vamos. Unequivocal. Two or four days. Two months. OK. We are proceeding to what we now believe could be the residence where the double homicide took place. The House belongs to the Saracen family. The son was nicknamed Quavo, which means Crowe in Spanish. Elvia thought of you and we. Martinez just informed us that the suspect apparently still lives on the premises. The team arrives at wearable's house and parks nearby. It's a relatively small one story house painted a sickly shade of orange yellow. The door is open. There's a dog on the porch and a TV is playing inside. So someone must be home. And then our guide sees something on the other side of the fence in queremos yard that is a mango tree and it is on the Saracen property. If found what may be the burial site, but how do we get to it? Jeremy sneaks behind the house. Careful to stay out of sight. Said We thought that a move to Europe from Nigeria had moved on from money to go to Jeremy gets closer and closer to the mango tree. And it's in a creek bed screened by other small trees and shrubs. It's a pretty secluded area, actually enough shelter on the Bank of the creek to say dig a shallow grave without being seen. So there is a mango tree here. There's it's a it's a concealed area. You could easily work here at night and you would not be visible from the road. According to the confession, this would have been where they were buried and then disinterred from here and moved as the investigation closed in on the perpetrators. Where's the microphone here? Jeremy makes it back to the car in one piece. We found the mango tree and we hope we haven't been seen by équitable or whoever's watching TV inside the house. Now that we found the tree, Marguerita story carries more weight, the detail of the mango tree makes her testimony seem plausible. I mean, it's a strange detail to just make up. Another detail we notice within about 100 yards of the property headed into the jungle. There is no cell reception. If the murderers made the emergency calls on Chris in the Sands, phones like Madagali said they wouldn't have had to go very far before they could log calls that never went through. The whole time where I'd queremos, we wonder, how did Chris and the sand get here? We know from their photos that they were at the Mirador at 1:00 in the afternoon. How is it possible that no one saw them come back down the pike and Easter with a group of recognizable guys from the neighborhood? Something's still not making sense. Taremi wonders if it's possible. There's some sort of shortcut through the jungle that could have brought Chris on the sand back to Palo Alto unseen. There may be a trail that connects this house or the or the grounds behind the house to the Easter trail. To answer this question, we return to her salon that is the former head of synagogue, who knows this jungle and these trails better than anyone? We ask him by chance, Is there some secret way Chris Ellison could have teleported from the middle order to Palo Alto without being seen horses surprises us? He not only confirms the existence of such a trail, which is called the macho, he offers to show it to us. All right, where are we going? We're here at the park today, Macho Trail, which translates to half of the top here. And this runs up to the Mirador. So it would have been a way for our suspects to transport Christmasland or escort them to the party house, which is just a couple of kilometers that way. Holzer tells us. This trail isn't used a lot and for good reason. It takes almost twice as long to get to the middle of the road as just taking the bannister. The Bannister run straight from bucket there up to the Mirror Road, climbing all the way. This trail runs along the crest of the central corridor of the t&la manga Highlands. Call it the scenic route. It's flatter, longer, less strenuous and most of the time pretty empty up when we look ahead to continue. So it is a road that currently very few people use. We're probably just park rangers and possibly hunters who know their way around the Mountain Peak Supérieure possesses. It's a three to five hour walk to the middle order. He leads the way with walkie talkies. We have our walkways, have knives, you have machetes. So let's go. Once we get going, though, I realize the trail is not really a trail at all. More like an overgrown path. I'm surprised at how wild it is. It's pretty obvious no one is maintaining this trail. No one's in data. It's not a trail. It's a path. If you pass by today and tomorrow, you want to pass by it again and it has rained. You probably won't be able to get through unless you cut the undergrowth with the machete. The Part-Time Archer is a longer, meandering route that matches up with what Marguerita told us that Chris Ellison walked back to Palo Alto with the Legion members unseen. Tito, being the son of a tour guide, would have known about this trail. He would have been able to navigate it, perhaps while one of the other Bundeena members drove the wrecked truck back to Quotables House. causeI also tells us, hypothetically, of course, the Papy Macho would be a stealthy way to transfer evidence, even human remains. And what he was saying is that this would be an easy trail to use to transfer some of the remains from the original burial site up into the Cordillera. Some questions with the not Iwaki as easy as drinking water from this way, with us to get rid of the scattered evidence or to plant it. I know we're investigating this murder hypotheses. But Jose is the former head of Cinderblock. He's been highly critical of the search efforts to locate Chris in the sand. So I have to ask, was this place searched in this area? I remember walking the path that connects to the suspicious house. This route, I'm almost certain that either no one or very few people looked for them on patrol for a while, forgetting because we were prohibited initially or attempt to come into this area and search was thwarted no longer than going to replicate. We weren't able to search because we had problems with the authorities. The director of the operation was not comfortable with my participation on the site due to political problems, people. This is pretty shocking. No wonder Jose's pissed the barta immature is a totally separate trail that also connects to the middle order. A trail that Chris in the sand could very well have been on after they disappeared. Foul play or no? Maybe Chris Anderson took a wrong turn down this alternate path. Or maybe they were taken down this trail, this super secret, stealthy trail all the way to Palo Alto to the House of the Crow. La Casa Équitable. To their deaths. And is telling us this trail wasn't searched. And back in 2014, he was prevented from searching it. We're a couple of hours from the Mirador when Joseph says it's starting to look like rain. He warns us that rising water levels could make our journey back extremely dangerous. So the rains are turning us back or the potential rains, the looming rains we could see it's already clouding over, but we've confirmed that this is a real theory. They could have come down this other trail that we didn't know about before, and it connects directly to the possible scene of a crime. It's raining, it's raining, let's go, but let's go. Well. Back in the car, we process everything that's happened today. Jeremy still can't believe we were able to interview Osmond's mother, Marguerita, and substantiate her story with the house, the Mango Tree and the Secret Trail, basically all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Right? Like every question I've ever had about this case was answered. Every question I've had for eight years was answered by this woman today. Could we be on the verge of solving this case, not only proving that Chris and the San were murdered, but also identifying the killers? It certainly felt like that. Well, Margaret, though, was speaking with us. She sounded genuine and believable. If it was a put on. Then she is an Academy Award worthy actress. But it's not just whether she's believable or not, it's that she's really just telling us what she was told by others more gas and her own son. As our cameraman, Louise, points out, while we're coming down from the day's excitement, Marguerita isn't technically a witness. She seems very moved by what she's telling us. Do you find her story credible? Yeah, but it's hearsay. It's hearsay. Well, I mean, it's a confession from one of the killers. She know she's not the witness. A witness told her what? Hugh Witness, yes, yes, eight years ago. It's not like any, it's probably the closest we're going to come because none of these people who actually did the crime are going to come and talk to us, right? But we could go talk to them. They're all still in town. And thanks to Margarita's testimony, we know a lot more about these guys and what role they may have played in the alleged murder. What's emerging is that Edwin Aguirre is actually the ringleader. And Henry is the muscle is the more violent one, but not the terribly smart one. It's Aguirre who plans everything. Maybe we should try to get close to this guy. Edwin. The one margarita calls el pulpo the octopus. If she's right about the group dynamics of the panda. Edwin could be at the center of it all. His family owns a chain of restaurants and will get there. He can't be that hard to find. So we drive around, and one by one, we check out every Saracen Song restaurant in town, and on our third try, we get lucky. We walk into the place and Edwin is right there with a bit of scruff and a little belly. It's surreal to see him in person when we've just heard he could be involved in multiple murders. To get him talking, I poses an influencer doing social media, blogging about the restaurants and book 80. I ask for the best plate on the menu. Edwin gives us the Grand Tour while he's showing us around. I turn on all of my charm and ask if he can help me find a proper fiesta for later that evening. I pulled him to the side and, you know, in Spanish, I said, Do you think that we could maybe work? We go grab a smoke and immediately, he said, How much do you want? I don't do it, but I have friends who do. Let's meet at seven to discuss more because I got to go run some errands. Edwin says he can find me some weed. He tells us to meet him at a bar downtown. Back in the car, our team debates whether to follow through for this meet up with Edwin, our driver is crying hysterically. She says Edwin is a big time local drug trafficker, and if he sees through our ruse, then all our lives could be in danger. Our cameraman, Louise, says we need to back out now, but we decided give yourself a look, so it provoked the traffic. This is not a low level. It was like the local is one of his pigeons here that was just doing. But he is that he's a distributor level. So she's saying that his restaurants are used for money laundering for the local drug racket and not for the local drug bracket. It's Costa Rica. It's he's not a low-level dealer. He is a distributor. If it's true that he's this powerful, if he is some regional drug kingpin, that could explain why the town is so terrified to speak out about what has happened. The fear in this car is not fear of him. Is fear of your guys his recklessness. Jeremy and I decided we'll meet Edwin alone and leave the local members of our team out of it. But when we get to the bar that night, Edwin isn't there. He had agreed to meet us at seven p.m.. He, you know, half an hour away by and I asked the bartender, Do you know if he was going to show? Do you have any way of contacting him? And he actually said, Oh my God, he left a little something for you. There's a small bag of weed waiting for us. The bartender says it's a gift from Edwin free of charge. So the drugs have arrived. But Edwin himself is nowhere to be seen. We leave the weed with the bartender. We make up an excuse about not wanting to take advantage of Edwin's generosity. But the truth is, weed is illegal in Panama, and having drugs on us puts the whole team at risk. We're not law enforcement or private investigators. Plus, where's Edwin? Why didn't he show? Is he on to us? But as the days go by, I keep getting text messages from Edwin if he knew we were investigating him. It doesn't seem likely that he'd want to keep chatting. I keep texting him back, but I don't push. I don't ask about oarsmen or Chris in the saying. We'd be putting ourselves in danger or asking more questions, making him suspicious. Not to mention it could blow our cover completely. And for what? Because they think you guys got in your head that we're creating a podcast has to be dramatic. So now your goal right now is to create drama for a show. Not really solve the case. We are trying to solve this case. We know where to find Edwin. We have his updated photo and phone number to give to authorities if they decide to reopen the case. We know that he knows how to get drugs, and buying weed is exactly the theory of how Chris The got in contact with the panda in the first place. But no matter how close we get to Edwin, no way he will confess to us. We need some other way to put him and the panda incredible house during the alleged murder. What we need is a firsthand witness, not more free drugs. So who can we talk to, who can corroborate madagali the story? Surely there are other people in there who have some knowledge of what happened that night? Someone who can attest that course in the sand were intercepted by the BUNDA and brought back to Quotables House where they were killed. The alleged perpetrators, Tito Edwin equable, they're not going to talk to us, at least not about this case. And Osman and Morales are dead. But what about the Ingabire boogaloo man who may have helped clean the crime scene and bury the remains? If he was there for the aftermath of a brutal murder, he could be our firsthand witness. He's the only person who can help us. And one of our sources knows where he is. That's next time. To peace to put them in bags. Only crazy people do that, they've killed the victim, they're cooling down a little bit and they're now able to start thinking about, oh no, luminol to determine if there's human blood, no matter how much they clean. The police officers testimony is identical to Ahmed's mother. Like the entire hairs on my neck, like stood up because so many things coincided. The indigenous man who works for the QuickVote series and family and he's the only person that can open this dam on. Lost in Panama is hosted by me, Marianna Bentz, you were the original reporting by Jeremy Craig and Mariana Bouncier, chief investigative correspondent. Jeremy Craig written by Jeremy Craig and Trent K Maverick. Produced by Trent Kay Maverick, executive producers Colin Thompson, Julianne, five, and Jeremy Craig, supervising producer D.J. Lubell, co-producer Mona Hassan, associate producer Lenora Quinonez, translator Lenora Quinones. Editing by Stephen Perez, Anton Doty and Alex Gonzalez. Mixing and mastering by Matt Soul. Voice actors Manoli Cardona and Stephen Bettis. Travel and logistics coordinator Brooke McArthur. On-Site Audio Recording by Richard Carlos, On-Site Photography by Louis EGA Garza. Original Music written by Colin Thompson. Orchestration Arrangement and additional compositions by Andrew Léger and Jesse Horgan. Music recorded at the Resort Studios Music engineered by Caleb Morris, assistant engineer Jordan DiDonato. Instrumentalists Matt or Bass Fell Glen, Laura Biddle, Jennifer Woo, Jean Paul Bajan, Sam Solorzano, Jesse Horgan and Trevor Gomez. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions and 8pm. Cover Art by Paula Entous, Special Assistance by Elizabeth Munoz, Martinez, Eduardo Ferreira, O'Donnell, Pamela Soledad, Amado, Might Alejandro Madrid, Rodriguez, Antonio Quito, Balbina Sam Museo Max. They are less Robida and admit we are really very special thanks to Susan Rosica. Gets. Thanks for listening to Lost in Panama. We'd really appreciate it if you subscribed, rated and reviewed on Apple Podcasts. Gracias. Thank you so much. Subscribed 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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