they found each other o their own tropical island. we saw love and the waters. and that s it. that will be our spot for th rest of our life she said it s like living i a postcard a picture perfect life. until she disappeared. imagine you were callin leaving messages calling, texting, and w started wondering. why would she just leave? i called her best friend an said, does she have a man that i don t know about is something going on where would she go? she wasn t selling that place. she loved it and why did someone new now on her slice of paradise this guy fooled us all. he fooled everybody. he got away with murder he got away with murder hello and welcome to dateline. it was a tropical hideaway where a group of adventurous aware american thought they ha found paradise good times, sunshine, a relaxe lifestyle, a place where peopl didn t ask a lot of question about their neighbors unti some of those neighbors starte to disappear here is kate snow w
it wasn t until bill killed cher, the woman who had a smil for everyone, that he wa caught it was a mistake, o targeting cher, that was his downfall he picked someone tha absolutely stood out everywher she went and would be missed and loved. someone the family cared so much about, that they woul start calling immediately. this is our girl, how dar you miss with our girl and think we re not coming for you it would take seven lon years for the wheels of justic to turn in panama. during that time, whole births wife divorced him while they both sat in separate panamania jails. but cher s family finally go the news they had waited for in august 2017, william dathan holbert, the man the peopl knew of bocas del toro new a wild bill cortez, we found guilty of the robbery an homicide of five people, according to a tweet from th panama ministry of justice he was sentenced to 47 years i prison and a woman once known as jane cortez, she was sentenced to 2
and with good reason. when don winner tapped into th islands legendary coconu telegraph, the more he becam convinced that wild bill was the key to finding both bo and cher this was a common denominator between the two of them this guy has supposedly brough their property for cash an then both of them disappeared. but while bill that wit both these people and they r missing? do you remember that moment yeah, dread came over me. like oh my god he really could ve don something to these people. could the brush real estate buying bartender be hiding a deadly secret? coming up the dark side of paradise. execute a search warrant at his house, i in the ak-47, get him in custody the police went appreciable s then they came up about two hours later and said, we nee you to come off and take a look when dateline continues
wild bill cortez in four months time he had snapped up the homes of tw people who had mysteriousl vanished cher hughes was one of them. now she was telling anyone who would listen that th disappearances and propert transfers were no coincidence. i thought that bill had don something to these people. i was telling people in bocas, the suspicions were all saying the same thing and bill is still livin nearby bill is still near, yeah. and he told people he was goin to shut me up. he told people that he told three people that he moved out of the house an into a hotel with security keith wasn t the only one that was nervous i became convinced that thi guy cortez had killed thes people in order to steal their property that s when i said, i m goin to the authorities he urged keith to do th same you need to come to panam
too. that beneath all that beauty was a dark secret. it still seems very on real i don t want to believe it this is a really, really ba guy. just send chills down m spine. but before the nightmare, came the dream bocas del toro is the kind o place where people come to escape a group of islands off the coast of panama and weight off the beaten path. it s the kind of place where things move more slowly. and life is supposed to be easy cher first visited th islands with her boyfriend keith werle, with cher it was love at first sight. what s more, it was affordable for the same money cher ha been saving up to save aroun the world, she bought he little piece of paradise a rental property, a small house, and that tiny rhode island we saw that lump in the water inside, that s it.