right here. and went up into the back of the property. reporter: jack bounded up and down the hill, until police followed him. and there they found something shocking. a mound of disturbed dirt. they began to dig. cher s husband keith waited at the bottom of the hill. the police went up with shovels, and then they came down, about two hours later, and said, we need you to come up and take a look. reporter: in a shallow grave hidden under a mound of garbage, the police made a horrible discovery the body of cher hughes. she had been shot once in the back of the head. i imagine that was one of the hardest days of your life. yeah. it sure is. i mean, no no one should ever see someone they cared about look like that. reporter: now, keith finally understood why jack kept swimming to bill s place. he d swim that mile back and just stay right there. he was staying true to mommy. reporter: but the horror wasn t over.
she would always make sure she had that income. she made sure she was setting herself up for what exactly what she wanted to do was retire and travel around the world. cher did travel but mostly in the u.s. then a friend invited her to visit exotic boca del toro. it decided to live there in seven days. the people here were phenomenal. children love panama and kids. keith is a carpenter. he built their dream home, a collection of shiny building on top of their lush green island. cher planted a tropical garden and adopted lots of animals including a pet monkey and a beautiful brown doberman pincher named jack. he adored cher and followed her wherever she went. she loved the local school kids, planned movie nights with popcorn and celebrated the holidays with enthusiasm even though her friend sean trainer
security. reporter: keith wasn t the only one who was nervous. i got to the point where i became convinced that this guy cortez killed these people in order to steal their property. that s when i said i m going to the authorities. he encouraged keith to do the same. he said you need to get to the prosecutor and really turn up the heat. keith went to panama city and laid out the case against wild bill to the dij the panamanian fbi. from that point on, kudos to the panamanian police, they just stepped it up. but for all the suspicion, there was still no hard evidence of a crime. that s when don winner got an idea. he d heard a lot of stories about wild bill and his ak-47 how he d even fire it off sometimes to impress his friends. but in panama, it s illegal for a civilian to own that type of weapon. so don made a suggestion to police. execute a search warrant on his house, find the ak-47, get him in custody.
deck when i dropped my purse. that would be cher for three to four days. reporter: the messages were reassuring, but not for long. a few days passed, and cher didn t return. then another text message this one from cher to keith. she just said i met somebody else who s better than you, yeah. she said she had met someone else? yes. and she was running away with that person? yeah. reporter: a mystery man? keith wanted to get to the bottom of it. i called her best friend, and said did cher meet somebody? does she have a man that i don t know about? is there something going on? she said she s never mentioned any guy to me ever. she s waiting for you. there s no man in her life. she didn t run away. reporter: but keith noticed something strange about the messages. they weren t written in cher s usual style. instead of small letters, it d be all capitals. and she d always write a-r-e, and this would be an r for are or 2, the number, would be there rather than
had simply taken off. my dogs were there. my tools were there. belongings were still on the island. where is cher? where is all that stuff? when she gets back, can you deal with that. that s between you and her. keith asked bill to bring his dogs and his stuff back. he placated he brought me one of my dogs. here s one dog. here is a table and two chairs. and here s a toolbox. i said that s a lot more missing here, bill. to keith, the whole story just didn t add up. she would have never sold the island. did you have an interest in any of that property? we put everything in cher s name. she had the right to sell? absolutely. but you don t think she would have done that? i don t think so. it was never about the stuff or money. it was our home. we set it up to live there forever. it all sounded wrong to aunt mary as well. she wasn t selling that place. she loved it. she loved it. mary wanted answers. she picked you up the phone and called wild bill.