How Do You Understand Crazy?
In the aftermath of the startling revelations about the serial killers', Wild Bill Cortes and Laura Reese, many of us are left wondering 'How Could This Happen?' - particularly over a period of time. You can't just kill people and bury them in the backyard and nobody notice. Or can you?
Let's not make excuses - this guy is a 'nut job'. But if you are the kind of goof-ball that in the United States could sell houses you don't own, cars that you have stolen, and businesses were you are only an employee, then Panama must have looked like easy pickings to this clown. There are some things about Panama that the outsider who has not lived here can not fully comprehend. Read on.
1. Panamanian prosecutor Angel Calderon told CNN in a telephone interview that the couple would befriend residents in the Bocas del Toro tourist area of Panama. According to Calderon, "The main thing is that he (Wild Bill Cortez) said that once he contacted them, he would study them and would determine what class of people they were in the sense of having money and property. He would become their friend, learning very personal details. Later, he would eliminate them and keep their property."
In my opinion, probably as important as anything in this wacko's line of thinking was that the 'target' did not have a large family or close support group in the immediate area of Bocas.
2. A large percentage of the ex-pat community here, at least the Americans, are 'isolation' inclined. Maybe one of the reasons they end up outside the U.S. is they have already 'been there and done that' when it comes to 'being involved'. "Don't want to hear about your real estate problem in Florida, or your problem with your ex-wife, your son's employment problems, the hold-up on your pension, ..." Sure there are still some 'joiners' - bridge clubs, Rotary Clubs, etc. But, those folks are in the minority. To say that news travels slowly may be incorrect - for a lot of people it does not travel at all.
3. All the English speakers here also operate in an 'information vacuum' when it comes to local and national (Panama) news, or at best receive only an information trickle - and that with a built in time delay. The local TV newscasts are indecipherable unless you are fluent (fluent!) in Spanish. And CNN, FOX News and CBS do not cover Panama news unless and until it becomes world news.
Since David is a major city, we do get a version of the Miami Herald daily (except Sundays). However, it is only 14 pages and just skims the surface of world news. The Herald was revamped about a year ago and the two pages of Panama national news were deleted in favor of Latin American coverage (so the paper could be marketed better in the rest of Latin America). I can buy an international version of both Time and Newsweek, but they are almost two weeks late. As you can see local news, even Panama national news is absent. For instance last month, I found out about the week-long deadly riots in Bocas three days after they started, and then only because the hospital bus did not come on Friday and take all the patients that stay in the hotel back to their homes in Almirante and Bocas because the roads were blocked by the rioters.
4. The real estate and banking laws in Panama are very different than those in the U.S. I will not bore you with a bunch of details, but just in the time I have been here (almost 3 years), Panama has passed a law that made it a crime for a lawyer to forge a deed or the registration of same. They also passed a law saying that realtors could not lie to buyers or sellers. Got it??
And both businesses and personal property here are often held (owned) by personal corporations. (Such was the case of the Bocas properties that Wild Bill grabbed.) Why is that relevant? Well the corporate ownership is determined by what we in the U.S. refer to as 'bearer bonds'. If you have the bonds in your hand that says you own 50% of XYZ Corp. - you do! And even worse, by law there is no paperwork of any kind associated with the corporation that has a person's name attached. That includes the bank! No names! The 'bearer' is the corporation - so says the corporation, so says the bank!
5. Probably as important as anything in unraveling this mystery is the personality of this Wild Bill clown. Big and loud, obnoxious and aggressive, he had the reputation for getting real aggressive with anyone who crossed him. So it was easier for many folks to just stay away from him - ignore him. There have also been several reports in the press that people were afraid of him (and justifiably so, it turns out). Why risks his wrath to report your suspicions to a police department that was (and is) infamously unresponsive?
This tragic situation should provide a wake-up call for many U.S. ex-pats, and not just the ones living in Panama. Many of the ex-pats have come to Panama to escape weather, high prices, politics and day-to-day social pressures in the U.S. And many of them, particularly the ones who have never lived outside the U.S. before, are painfully naive. They have read all the guidebooks and been told by their brother to 'watch out for the natives'. But they assume any Caucasian who speaks English has some kind of 'trusted agent' status. I can't tell you the number of Americans who check in the hotel, see me sitting on the balcony reading, and 30 minutes later are filling me in on details of their personal situation that I am sure their relatives back home don't even know.
About two months ago an elderly couple approached me on the balcony after having just arrived in Panama. He wanted to now how best to protect the cash they were carrying - he an his wife were each carrying $10,000 in cash (the legal max you can enter the country with). I was shaking my head in wonder as I explained that the hotel did not have a safe, while pointing out to him the Banco Nacional right across the street. About 30 minutes later when I walked through the hotel lobby, he was trying to make the desk clerk understand his Spanglish (by talking loud enough that you could hear him across the street), explaining that he was carrying 'mucho dinero' and was upset there was no safe in the hotel. God!
It hasn't dawned on many of the ex-pats here that a certain percentage of their ex-pat brothers are here in Panama because they are running from the law. A problem as 'minor' as a DWI or a child support problem - or - a Wild Bill history? Hey folks, does it ever cross your mind to consider how a fellow that is way to young to retire, and can not work here (legally), supports himself in Panama. Wake up - he is probably hustling something or somebody.
Wake up ex-pats. If you would call the police in a heartbeat about the guy in the raincoat hanging around the grade-school playground in Tampa - that behavior doesn't become something to "tsk, tsk" about as you go on your way 'minding your own business' just because you are in Panama. A loud vulgar clown that you would tell to shut up in the restaurant in your hometown does not become less of an a**hole when he gets to Panama. And ignoring him may be dangerous!
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