The Fugitives Are In Custody
William “Wild Bill" Cortez and his wife Jeana Seana, were arrested in Nicaragua earlier in the week on two murder charges and are suspected of a series of murders. Two bodies have
already been found on a property where they once lived. Investigators are continuing the search at five sites in in Bocas del Toro for additional victims of a couple. The investigation is also pursuing whether they also killed another ex-pat shortly after arriving in Panama in 2007. There is also the possibility that the couple murdered two of their indigenous employees who have also been reported missing.
They are charged with killing Cheryl Lynn Hughes, 53, a St. Louis, Missouri-native who had lived in Panama for 10 years, and Bo Icelar, who a friend described as the former owner of a Santa Fe, New Mexico, gallery. Bo Icelar, who went missing in 2009, and Cher Lynn Hughes, disappeared earlier this year. In both cases, the couple allegedly murdered the victims so they could steal their properties,
Friends and relatives say Hughes owned a Bocas hotel but wanted to sell it, and that Cortez took it over in March. Hughes' estranged husband, Keith Werle, who also lives in Panama but was separated from Hughes, said Cortez claimed he had bought Hughes' property and that she had left the area without saying where she was going. Werle said he began suspecting Cortez when his stories about the transaction didn't add up, and when he realized that Cortez also owned property that had belonged to Icelar, who previously disappeared in Bocas del Toro.
Werle said he received text messages from Hughes' phone that he found suspicious, including one claiming that she had gone sailing. "She didn't like sailing. The stories he kept telling people didn't make sense," Werle said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Then Werle stopped hearing from Hughes altogether, which he found implausible despite their estrangement. The couple moved to Panama together 10 years ago and married after five years. "If she had met someone and moved on or something she would have thrown that in my face," he said.
Police found her body after her Werle persuaded them to search the hotel run by Cortez. Werle said several of Hughes' dogs, her passport and other items belonging to her were found at the hotel during the police search last week. It was one of the dogs that led police to Hughes' body in a wooded area behind the house, he said.
A few hours later, police found another body that Panamanian authorities identified as Icelar. Icelar, too, had been trying to sell his property in Panama and move back to the United States, said longtime friend, Sharon L. McConnell. He wanted to leave Panama "because the political climate was such that he didn't want to get involved in any of that stuff," she added.
McConnell became suspicious after Icelar stopped answering his phone on Nov. 30. She learned Cortez had bought the property and left numerous phone messages for him asking about Icelar's whereabouts. Cortez never returned those messages. Eventually, she asked a friend of Icelar's in Panama to report him as missing.
Info From The U.S.
According to the America's Most Wanted article (2006), William Dathan Holbert (aka Wild Bill Cotez) was involved in a similar scheme of taking over a house in North Carolina. In 2005, an Oak Island, North Carolina couple returning to their vacation house on the coast, made a shocking discovery. There was a man inside, making renovations to their home. And he adamantly claimed that he owned the house. Even more startling was that the man had a deed. The three came to realize that they had been duped and William Holbert, the man cops say is responsible, was nowhere to be found. This was the first in a series of such incidents by Holbert prior to his fleeing the U.S.
An Interesting Footnote
Forensic psychiatrist Alejandro Perez told TVN News this morning that the Panamanian Institute of Forensic Medicine is prepared to assess the personality of "Wild Bill" Holbert. The Institute is already specialized in areas of mental health, and they have psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers on staff. They will analyze the personal history of Wild Bill and his family, they will give him mental exams, and a social work study to develop a mental health diagnosis, said Perez. The expert said this is the first time that such a case will be analyzed in Panama.
To Be Continued ...
I will post more information as it becomes available. This story has the country of Panama, and its Central American neighbors, standing on their heads.
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