A jailed US man has admitted killing five other Americans so he could take over their businesses and other properties in a Panamanian resort area, a government prosecutor said on Saturday.
The man’s wife refused to talk with investigators and asked for legal assistance from the US embassy, the official said.
The embassy was closed on Saturday and US officials could not be located for comment.
The couple, William Dathan Holbert and Laura Michelle Reese, were arrested earlier this week when they tried to enter Nicaragua from Costa Rica and were sent back to Panama in shackles for questioning in the slayings of two Americans and the disappearances of three other US citizens and two Panamanians.
In testimony on Friday, Holbert “acknowledged that he killed five people” — the five missing US citizens, Panamanian Assistant Prosecutor Angel Calderon said in a telephone interview.
“He has explained what he did, how he did it and why he did it,” said Calderon, who added that Holbert denied killing the two missing Panamanians.
Local media reported that a public defender was present for Holbert’s questioning, but didn’t report the lawyer’s name, so no independent comment was available on Calderon’s description of the prisoner’s statements.
The case began when authorities found the bodies of a woman and a man buried behind a hostel run by Holbert in an area of small islands in Bocas del Toro, a Caribbean archipelago popular with tourists.
The woman was identified as Cheryl Lynn Hughes, 53, a native of St Louis, Missouri, who had lived in Panama 10 years and was reported missing by friends and relatives in late March. The man was Bo Icelar, who disappeared in late November last year and was described by a friend as the former owner of a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Authorities in North Carolina say Holbert had owned a landscaping business in that US state until six years ago, when he divorced his wife, sold the company and filed for bankruptcy. Holbert disappeared soon after and allegedly sold a house he didn’t own and a car he had stolen. Police say he used aliases to elude authorities in at least six states.
Calderon quoted Holbert as saying he established friendships with Icelar and Hughes by posing as a potential investor, then shot each in the head, buried them and took over their money and other properties, but Holbert said his first killings in Panama occurred about three years ago, when he fatally shot a US citizen named Mike Brown, his wife and small son in the head, the prosecutor said.
Holbert said he also had developed a friendship with Brown, describing him as a fugitive sought by US authorities on drug trafficking charges who was living under an assumed name, Calderon said.
“Seeing that he had a lot of money and bank accounts, he shot him in the head,” the prosecutor said.
Calderon said Holbert told investigators about two spots on his property in Bocas del Toro where he buried the Browns and experts are set to examine the site next week to verify the information and exhume the bodies.
Holbert and his wife used false names and citizenship papers while living in Panama. Holbert posted as a Dutch citizen, William Cortez-Reese, and his wife went by the names Jane or Jeane Cortez.
When Holbert and his wife arrived at Panama’s Judicial Investigation Department on Thursday, they refused to answer questions from journalists. Holbert said he would talk only to Panamanian authorities.
“The people in Panama are very friendly and I like living here,” he said.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS