half years. wild bill and his wife. reporter: cher hughes and her husband keith worley lived together on their piece of paradise. keith and cher s marriage eventually went south and they separated. even afterwards they remained in regular contact, texting several times a day until late march. the last three or four texts i got were just a little strange. they weren t quite what cher would say. she indicated in the text that she had met someone and she was leaving. reporter: keith says he now knows those messages that didn t sound like cher, weren t. it was wild bill, he says, impersonating cher. keith, sandy and others tried to alert local authorities. police finally mounted an investigation into wild bill after an ex-pat blogger broke and pursued the story. and cher s concerned relatives, including keith, flew to the mainland to meet with police. by then, wild bill and jane really william holbert and laura michelle reese were missing themselves. they had fled.
diagnosis. and this is a way we hope can cut through that. in only 15 minutes this computer program could tell whether you do or don t have autism, depending upon your brain scan. the question is, why reporter: this is the kind of specialist help people can access once they have a diagnosis. work s now under way on developing a test for children. but some experts say much more research is needed before the test becomes widely available. jane hughes, bbc news. the applications of a test like that are obviously unbelievable. the reality, though, it s still in the research phase. so in terms of clinical trials, we don t know when it s going to be available to people. more work to do. they say between 1 million and 1.5 million americans have some kind of autism. but if you detect it early it can reduce the life-long costs by up to two-thirds. yeah, big news. coming up next, the president s press se
death. reporter: booker spent three weeks in intensive care, stabbed five times. he s one of at least 20 victims linked to the serial slasher since may, most of them in flint, where five men were killed. three men were stabbed in leesburg, virginia. another in toledo, ohio. 911. a guy has been stabbed several times in the stomach near the corner of collingwood and floyd. he is bleeding profusely. reporter: booker is the exception. nearly every other victim is african-american. only thing that kept me alive is because i played dead. he is methodical from the standpoint of figuring out a way to get people to him or catch them off guard. reporter: the attacks have been happening on average every four days. the most recent one, saturday night. leaving investigators with the nearly impossible task of staying one step ahead of a serial killer. it can be that one scrap of information that happens to blow a case wide open. reporter: authorities are hopeful tips and a trail of
program could tell whether you do or don t have autism, depending upon your brain scan. the question is, why reporter: this is the kind of specialist help people can access once they have a diagnosis. work s now under way on developing a test for children. but some experts say much more research is needed before the test becomes widely available. jane hughes, bbc news. the applications of a test like that are obviously unbelievable. the reality, though, it s still in the research phase. so in terms of clinical trials, we don t know when it s going to be available to people. more work to do. they say between 1 million and 1.5 million americans have some kind of autism. but if you detect it early it can reduce the life-long costs by up to two-thirds. yeah, big news. coming up next, the president s press secretary defends a controversial choice of words. the star-studded bash. d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d
he is now in jail, and vicki mabrey got to talk to the man accused of killing five other americans. i m vicki mabrey from nightline, new york. did you kill those five people? i m not at liberty to talk about my case. reporter: this is the man panamanian police say has confessed to five murders. killing his neighbors and friends to get their property and their cash. everybody knew he was crazy but nobody thought he was a killer. reporter: sandy hodge moved to bocas del toro five years ago to get away from the states and live in peace by the sea. this island chain off the coast of panama is where you come to escape from the rat race, or the law. most say it s paradise. but that all changed when a couple called bill and jane cortez arrived a few years ago. he was known here as wild bill cortez. they re taxing us to death. they re removing our jobs. reporter: it turns out he was really william holbert, a white