Getting Justice For Victims of William "Wild Bill" Dathan Holbert and His Ex-wife Laura Michelle Reese

[Penny]

I frequently doze in front of the TV at night. One of my favorite channels for this activity is the Investigation Discover channel (67 on CableOnda) with all it's true crime programs. Last night I stumbled across an hour long story about Wild Bill in Bocas and how Don Winner, owner of the apparently now defunct Panama Guide, brought him to justice.

The general theme was that Wild Bill killed lots of people in Bocas who were rootless and wouldn't be missed by either family or friends. He would kill them and then tell people they had sold him their property before leaving town. He got away with this for a long time but made a mistake when he killed a woman who owned a small private island. She was a party animal and her ex-husband still kept in contact with her. She was immediately missed and an investigation was begun. Her ex brought in investigative journalist Don Winter and Wild Bill now resides in the David Correctional Facility.

It was a good show.

[Bonnie]

I saw this several years ago when it first came out. It's a good watch, especially for those of us who live here. There are so many new residents that many probably weren't around during Wild Bill's escapades.

What is Wild Bill's status? Anybody know? Last I heard he was still in jail in David. There hasn't been a trial, has there? I also remember some talk about possibly extraditing him back to the States to answer for some criminal activity there. Like so many news stories, this received big play at the time but now has sunk out of sight.

[Keith Woolford]

1 minute ago, Bonnie said:

What is Wild Bill's status? Anybody know? Last I heard he was still in jail in David. There hasn't been a trial, has there? I also remember some talk about possibly extraditing him back to the States to answer for some criminal activity there. Like so many news stories, this received big play at the time but now has sunk out of sight.

No trial yet. The wheels of justice move slowly here and neither side appears to be in a big rush to get this case over with.

Assembling and preparing the forensic evidence alone could take years.

Holbert knows he's done and when convicted will spend the rest pf his life in la casa grande at LaJoya. He would probably rather remain in David as long as possible where he plays the big fish in a small pond.

[Marcelyn]

More information about "Wild Bill" of Panama. Click here  http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/0311/panama.html

[JoJo]

Wow, thanks for posting this link Marcelyn.  I hadn't read this. Goes to show you just never know some folks.

[Penny]

Seeing the show made we wonder what's happened to Don Winner. He seems to have disappeared just like some of Wild Bill's victims. The last entry in his Panama Guide Blog was back in June.  He has a wife in Panama City but he also has a bad ticker.

Does anybody know?

[Gordon Bakke]

He has a FB page with recent comment, so I assume The Wonderful Donald is still with us. https://www.facebook.com/don.winner

Edited December 22, 2015 by Gordon Bakke

[JoJo]

He's in the US. He had posted that he missed his wonderful Duran coffee.

YUCK! That stuff tastes like dirty socks smell. Just my opinion. 

[Moderator_02]

Wild Bill's hearing scheduled for December 5^th, 2016, has been suspended because of a procedural error.

 

http://www.prensa.com/in_english/Suspenden-Wild-Bill-programada-diciembre_21_4635496407.html

[Moderator_02]

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Wild Bill finds God as trial looms

Posted on January 21, 2017 in Panama

A reformed Wild Bill

Post Views: 180

“WILD BILL”   Dathan  Holbert, heading for trial. charged with multiple murders on Cauchero Island, Bocas del Toro province, in 2010, has apologized to the families of the victims.

He made the  statement when he left the Superior Court of Justice of the Third Judicial District, where he was notified of the hearing that will be held on February 20.

He said  that he is now “a different man, renewed and given to God.”

Who was also notified of the date of hearing was the his partner  of the Laura Michel Resse

Attorney Claudia Alvarado, attorney of both defendants, confirmed that all parties were notified for the Jury  hearing scheduled for February 20 at 8:00 am.

http://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panama/wild-bill-finds-god-trial-looms

[WryAwry]

Reckon he hasn't got to the part about "divine retribution" -- or even the "eye for an eye" part ... 

[JudyS]

Yeah, they all try that "given to God" thing, except maybe Charles Manson.  I don't think he ever stepped aside for God.

[Moderator_02]

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PREVIEW: The ruthless serial killer who “found God”

Posted on January 24, 2017 in Panama

William Wild Bill Holbert From small time US crook to Ruthless Panama killer

Post Views: 108

William Dathan Holbert, aka “Wild Bill,” a self confessed serial killer will go on  trial on February 20, for crimes dating back seven years.

Dyring his time in jail in David he has continued to attract media attention with numerous claims including gaining a girl friend and “finding God.”

The man who cold bloodedly killed friends and neighbors including a 17- year- old, has been described as an arch manipulator.

A British journalist who followed Holbert’s trail in the US and interviewed him at length in his David prison,  has given Newsroom permission to publish some of the chilling extracts from the resulting book.

They will be posted on Wednesday Jan 25. And for those who are part of our free subscription list the report  will be in your e-mail on Thursday morning. Others  can subscribe today, and be first with the news seven days a week

http://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panama/preview-serial-killer-found-god

[Moderator_02]

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Murder in Paradise: Wild Bill serial killer jail interview

Posted on January 26, 2017 in General

A confessed killer on Facebook

Post Views: 115

THE UPCOMING  Panama trial of  William “Wild Bill” Dathan Holbert will only serve to   record  his guilt and for him to receive the court’s sentence as   he has already confessed to multiple killings.

UK journalist  Nick Foster followed the trail of Holbert, a small time  US crook and con man from  Carolina to Panama where he  ran the Jolly Roger bar. murdered his friends and ended up a jailhouse celebrity who claims to have found  God

Later research reveals alleged earlier killings in Costa Rica

Esquire magazine introduced   an extract from  Foster’s chilling book: “The Jolly Roger Social Club”:

On a scorching hot day in July, 2010, two Panamanian policemen set off in a motorboat from Bocas del Toro on Panama’s Caribbean coast. It’s a bustling place and a favorite of American expats who like to party, occupying an uneasy space between surfers’ hangout and drug den. It took the policeman around forty-five minutes skimming over the glassy waters of the Bocas del Toro lagoon, evading clumps of mangrove, to

Five bodies buried behind the house

reach their destination: a large, modern house set back from the shore, surrounded by impenetrable jungle.

It turned out that the owners of the house, an American couple calling themselves “Wild Bill” and Jane Cortez, had left in a hurry.

Tipped onto a bed was a pile of documents, including a check books and ATM cards that didn’t belong to either of the Cortezes. The policemen found a jar containing gold dental fillings and crowns and ammunition for an AK-47. A path at the back of the house led through green, dense bush to a clearing. Someone had dug a couple of ditches, each around six feet long. They were shallow graves containing the remains of five bodies.

Arrested several weeks later, “Wild Bill” Cortez, 30—real name William Dathan Holbert, from Hendersonville, North Carolina—admitted to killing the people buried behind his house, including its former occupants, the mysterious Brown family.

 

Four of the five were American expats; later, Holbert confessed to having killed yet another American expat, making a total of six murders. Meanwhile Jane Cortez (real name Laura Michelle Reese), a couple of years younger than Holbert and also from North Carolina, denied all knowledge of the crimes.

Following the gruesome discoveries, Holbert and Reese’s former neighbors, many of them originally from the United States, were split:

Some thought the story of the murders should be told, but other refused to speak about it, brusquely rejecting enquiries.

 From her jail cell, Reese refused Nick Foster’s interview request. But Holbert agreed, with surprising enthusiasm.

In 2014, Foster entered the jail where Holbert was being kept in advance of his trial.

The publisher’s have authorized Newsroom to publish the following extract from the book.

IN MARCH  2014, I made my first visit to the city of David, Panama.

The Dark Lands

William Dathan Holbert and Laura Michelle Reese had passed through here in 2007 and hadn’t lingered. But since their Panamanian crimes took place in the west of the country, and David has its only big courthouse, the pair had to await trial in jails in the city.

A newspaper reporter covering the crime beat in David introduced me to Demetrio Abrego, a Panamanian TV reporter working out of an office of the TVN channel covering western Panama. Ábrego had interviewed Holbert in his cell six months previously. It was a weekday, mid-afternoon, and Ábrego had just filed that day’s story with the channel’s HQ in Panama City.

A dark- eyed man in his forties who describes himself on Twitter as a “Journalist, Lawyer, Teacher and Farmer,” Ábrego was relaxed and expansive. A half-dozen watercolor caricatures, widemouthed, bug-eyed—one for each member of the TVN team working in David—stood on a shelf in his office against a wall whose paint was peeling like a bad skin disease.

I mentioned to Ábrego that I planned to ask Holbert for a meeting.

Ábrego’s tone changed. He recalled going into David prison with his camera team, feeling the stares of the prisoners in the exercise yard, and entering Holbert’s dark, stinking cell.

Once the interview was done, a couple of younger members of the television crew took selfies in the yard with Holbert, much to Ábrego’s displeasure.

A confessed killer on Facebook gains notoriety among inmates

Selfies with the American prisoner would only serve to shore up his notoriety among the other inmates—surely the reason why Holbert was happy to be in the frame.

With his smiles and back-slapping, Holbert had—on some emotional level—won over those junior crew members. But he certainly hadn’t won over their boss.

“Don’t trust anything Holbert ever tells you,” warned Ábrego. “He is the ultimate manipulator.”

A prison guard strolled across the empty yard and escorted me and Claudia Alvarado, Holbert’s attorney, to the administrative wing of the jail where he was being held.

Three chairs had been placed in the narrow space in front of a counter, behind which four or five young women were processing stacks of paper files. Behind them I could see the number 1,124 written on a board on the wall—the number of men locked up in David prison that day.

Guards shuffled in and out. We were in an exposed place, but we were entirely ignored.

Holbert arrived with a smile and a brisk “Hey, I’m Bill,” and offered his hand. He sat next to Alvarado on an identical, straight- backed chair. He wore no handcuffs and was not, as far as I could see, restrained in any way.

I faced Holbert, sitting lower down, in an armchair. He was wearing baggy shorts that extended past his knees, a yellow t-shirt, and a large crucifix made from two pieces of wood tied at the center with a rubber band. He looked physically fit though pale, and had a goatee. I tried to put to the back of my mind the thought that the finger that pulled the trigger to take the lives of at least six people had just squeezed my palm.

“Do you think much of your life back in the States?”

No, Holbert preferred not to think of the life he had led before prison. In high school, he said, he had played everything except basketball. He had played defensive end on his high school football team. On top of that, he had done wrestling, boxing, and the discus and shot put. He said that he had been class president, which I knew was untrue—he had been almost perfectly anonymous at North Henderson High.

The deck of the Jolly Roger

I could have confronted him about this, but I chose not to do so. The world is full of liars and fantasists. But it’s not full of multiple killers. Better to move on.

We talked about his life after graduating from North Henderson.

Holbert leaned forward, resting his chin on his thumb and forefinger. He looked me in the eye all the time, but now his stare was deep, borderline aggressive. A narrow shaft of sunlight picked out particles of dust, rising and falling.

I wanted to talk about the period when Holbert and Reese set up a white supremacy bookshop.

“I made a gain every month. I sold heavy equipment. I was working eighteen hours a day. But I fell apart after my divorce. I said **** it and left.

“When they took my children away from me, I became a different man. I appealed, and lost. They put the same judge there. I played the game by their rules and lost. I was really pissed off about the States.”

“It was a kind of tipping point?”

Holbert looked at me quizzically. I said, “You know, like in chemistry class, when a piece of litmus paper turns from pink to blue. It happens in just a moment.”

A “Wanted” notice from his previous life

“Yes!” said Holbert. “I didn’t want my house of cards to fall down. I had six houses. It was an empire!” But things started to unravel for him. “I robbed Peter to pay Paul.” Holbert had been looking past me, but then concentrated his gaze. “We are brought up thinking that money is everything!”

I wanted to talk about the period when Holbert and Reese set up a white supremacy bookshop in Forest City, North Carolina. About how Holbert took to the street with a megaphone to get people to attend his meetings.

“That was nothing to do with racism,” said Holbert curtly. “It was anti-immigration.” He wanted to move on from that line of questioning: “I don’t think about my life outside anymore. If I did, I’d go insane.”

“I killed my friends”

What about the families of his victims?

“I feel horribly. I killed innocent people. I killed my friends.”

From where I was sitting, Holbert’s contrition felt not at all convincing.

“It was a bad decision from a moral standpoint. Ridiculously bad. I don’t know why I did it.” So why did he kill Cher, for instance? “I wanted to show myself I’m a coldhearted bastard. I went against my instincts. I don’t know why I did it. Everything was screaming, Don’t do it! But I did it anyway. I killed my friend.

Nightmare and karma
“It’s all my fault, all of it. I am your worst nightmare.

“But I’m pragmatic. I want to heal the past. I’m interested in the future. I work with the Catholic Church. It’s a karma thing. I lived a shitty, selfish life and I want to make up for it.”

I asked Holbert: “What would you say to people who think you deserve to die for your crimes?”

As quick as a flash: “What people?”

“Some people in Bocas, for instance. It can’t be a surprise to hear that there are folks who think you deserve to be put to death for those murders.”

Holbert shook his head like I was missing something really obvious.

“I feel horribly. I killed innocent people. I killed my friends.”

“Back home the best you can expect—the best—is not to get out of prison again. In America we have to punish, take a sledgehammer. But here it’s a more forgiving society. They’re not judgmental. Life is laid- back. I’m not an American anymore. I feel half Panamanian. They [Americans] make me want to vomit! The US mentality makes me sick. But Panamanians are more intrigued than shocked. They want photos and autographs.” Holbert brightened. “I love it here! Here, chicks call me!” The man facing me was animated.

“In America they think of me as Hannibal Lecter or Charles Manson. I’m infamous. But here I’m loveable. I speak ghetto Spanish. I’m Bill, nobody special.” Holbert said that in North Carolina nobody could believe he had turned out this way, that this was the man they had known. “There’s a stigma,” he said.

“I’ve done some cool **** and some bad ****. No one wants to be a mass murderer.”

Holbert turned to Alvarado and said: “El panameño está más interesado que asustado.” Panamanians are more curious than afraid.

Alvarado nodded her head.

An hour had passed, and the prison guards were bustling all around us. The typists behind the counter were filling out forms. It seemed we could stay here on these rickety chairs as long as we pleased.

“Now I read a lot. They sent books [to the prison] from a library that closed in the Canal Zone. They’re mainly textbooks. It’s not a curriculum. I like the ones on anthropology.” It turned out that Holbert was writing some books of his own. He counted them on his fingers. There was an autobiography (“I think it’s pretty good”) and also what Holbert described as a “parable.”

“You’ve read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho? Well, it’s a bit like that.”

A third book was going to remain a secret for the moment: “There’s another one, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

I had started to feel nauseous. But there was still one big question I wanted to raise. It was in my note pad, circled. I was thinking now of a photo in the DA’s file of a family scene.

Ever since I saw it for the first time, I could not get this photo out of my mind. The image was of Michael Brown and his wife, Nan, and Brown’s sons Marco and Watson. Watson was sixteen or seventeen when the picture was taken. He was seventeen years and two months old when Holbert put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The photo was taken by Brown’s daughter in the muddy yard of the Brown residence in Darklands. I have a black- and- white copy, although the original was almost certainly in color. I can imagine the blue of the sky at the corners of the picture, the green of the banana leaves in the background. With the colors drained, the life has gone, too.

Marco, on the left, long- limbed, exudes a boyish confidence. In the middle stand Michael and Nan Brown. Watson is on the right of the photo, next to his mom, shy, squinting slightly, locks of hair falling over his eyes. He is, I imagine, small for his age. Probably when folks looked at him and imagined how old he was, they guessed a year too few.

“How do you kill a seventeen-year-old boy?”

Holbert looked like this wasn’t a question he was expecting.

“How do you kill a seventeen-year-old boy like Watson Brown? Tell me, how exactly do you do that?”

Holbert said he was following orders. It was that old Mafia story again: “They said, ‘Take care of this.’ It’s what happened. The kid, he was there. I ran out of money. I’m not justifying what I did. . . . And they were people trafficking, the Browns. They were doing some real bad ****. The boy,

too. . .”

I thought I heard Holbert say that the Browns were killing and raping. But I felt sick and suddenly I realized I wasn’t hearing right. I put my pen down. I thought of a disinfectant gel I had back at my hotel that I wanted to rub into my hands and arms. I needed to get out of this place.

One more time, now a bit louder, and in a different tone, despite myself: “How do you kill a seventeen- year- old boy? How is this possible?”

Claudia Alvarado, Holbert’s attorney, fired an inquisitive glance in my direction. For me, the conversation had ground to a halt right there. I now felt like I was about to vomit. But Holbert had moved on to talk about other things.

“It’s going to be an interesting ride. I’m not beaten. I’m not going to lay down and die.

“Before I’m forty I’ll be out. There are just too many loopholes.”

Excerpted from THE JOLLY ROGER SOCIAL CLUB: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise by Nick Foster, published by HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY, LLC. Copyright © 2016 by Nick Foster. All rights reserved.

The book is available on Amazon.

http://www.newsroompanama.com/features/features-2/expat-serial-killer-chilling-jail-interview

[Brundageba]

My my.....he looks great.  Jail has served him well.  I'll bet he's a real star in there.  No doubt he will write a book soon and profits will go to his keeping there in his Panama hell-hole jail.  Scarey dude that fellow.

Waaaay before his capture after his nefarious deeds, my husband responded to his ad to buy a motorcycle.  A Harley .  ( Wild Bill was a motorcycle dude) They conversed for some time.  In fact my husband had his # on his phone addy list they talked so often.  The plan was for my husband to meet him with the motorcycle in ( get this) Las Olas.  Ok so my husband got the several thousand dollars in a brown bag and was off to buy  the motorcycle...actually went out the door.  He came back in the house and said : " Honey are you OK with this?"   I said : " You know I hate motorcycles.  It's dangerous here.  When you are paralyzed after your cycle accident don't  expect me to turn you every two hours and give you and enema every 3 days ( I'm a nurse)"    OK so he got on the phone and called the dude and cancelled the deal.  Only way down the road did he learn who this dude was....yup...killer dude.   My husband would have been vulture food there in Las Olas.

Be careful here.  You have not a clue who you might be talking to...you think you can trust.

[Moderator_02]

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Reformed Wild Bill says wife also victim

Posted on February 20, 2017 in Panama

 

Wild Bill and wife at the time of their arrest in 2010

Post Views: 154

WILLIAM “Wild Bill”Dathan Holbert,  self confessed killer of five Americans in Bocas del Toro  said Monday Feb.20 that  he is a regenerated man, willing to repent of his crimes and  face justice.

In a statement  read as he  left David Jail on his way to the High Court where his trial was scheduled,  he exculpated his wife Lura Michelle Reese of the crimes, saying  she was another victim of the events.

He also said he did kill any Panamanians and  emphasized that the cases of the three Indians who were said to have disappeared, was not true and stated that “they appeared later, but the media have not made news of this.”

The hearing was  scheduled for 8:00 a.m. but  was suspended at  9:45 a.m., after  lawyer Claudia Alvarado representing  Holbert and Reese, presented  a medical certificate.

All the parties, involved  in the case were present  and even some relatives of the murdered Americans, who must now await  a new alternate trial date.

 

http://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panama/reformed-wild-bill-says-wife-also-victim

[Keith Woolford]

The third hearing in the William Holbert, Laura Reese murder cases was held today in David and the trial has now been scheduled to begin May 29th.

http://ministeriopublico.gob.pa/notifican-tercera-vez-las-partes-audiencia-william-dathan-holbert-laura-michelle-reese/

 

[Moderator_02]

What follows is an automated translation of the above news article. Translation fidelity is not guaranteed.

Quote

'Wild Bill': Five Crimes in Paradise
Eliana Morales Gil, Juan Manuel Díaz 16 Apr 2017 - 00: 00h

"I invited her to leave the house to observe the lazy monkeys at about 8 at night. When we went to see the animals, I shot him in the back of the neck. "

William Dathan Holbert, alias Wild Bill or Savage Bill, spared no detail at the time of confessing to the authorities the way he murdered five Americans in Panama. On May 29 he will be tried alongside his ex-wife Laura Reese for the homicide of C Heryl Hughes, Bo Barry Icelar, Michael Watson Brown, Manchittha Nankratoke of Brown and Watson Brown.

The judicial records of these cases reveal the calculation with which Wild Bill, imprisoned in a Chiriqui prison since 2010, planned all the killings.

Cold, raw, cruel. A disturbed mind did not act here. Examinations from the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Science certified that Wild Bill does not have any psychotic type mental disorder, as he pretended at first.

The murder of Cheryl Hughes was the first piece of the dark terror puzzle created by the Savage Bill in Bocas del Toro and that he had to arm the authorities, who discovered that before committing the crime of this woman had killed four more.

Everything began to unfold as of July 12, 2010 when Keith Martin Werle went to the Denunciation Reception Center of the Public Ministry, located in the capital, to report the disappearance of his wife. She said that Cheryl was absent from her home on Cauchero Island, Bocas del Toro, approximately after March 21, 2010.

He had spent eight years residing in that paradise, where he accumulated properties: "islands, hotels and other belongings." He suspected that Wild Bill, or William Cortez, as he also called himself, and his wife Jane Cortez [Laura Reese] had something to do with it. Eight days later, on July 20, 2010, police found a body in a pit at the Hacienda Cortez in Aguacate, Cauchero village, Bocas del Toro. The property was Wild Bill.

When police informed Keith Martin that they had found a body at the Wild Bill estate, he was able to say, "If you have silicone on your breasts, you are my wife." In fact, it was Cheryl.

The necropsy protocol that Wilfredo Pittí Morales and Silvia de Bandel, doctors of the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences, performed to the corpse revealed that the cause of the death was by cerebral laceration and wounded by firearm projectile in the head.

CAE IN COSTA RICA

The Savage Bill was arrested in late July 2010 in the waters of the San Juan River, on the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Interpol staff, the Judicial Investigation Directorate and the special forces of the National Police brought him to Panama. He first acknowledged having killed the three members of the Brown family to keep their properties and said where he had buried the bodies. He said he then met Bo Icelar and immediately saw in him "a candidate to kill him and stay with his lands," and he did. Afterwards, he committed the crime of Cheryl Hughes, also to appropriate his goods.

He narrated that he had met her three years before with her husband Keith Martin. The couple had problems, she said. When he invited them to parties at home - because Savage Bill had many parties - Cheryl told him that Keith beat him, that he was with another woman and that he was always depressed. That's why, she says, one day Cheryl revealed that she wanted to leave Bocas del Toro. I was willing to sell her "your little hotel [sic]" on Carenero Island. Then, he saw the opportunity not only to stay with the hotel, but with all his goods.

He planned the crime. The first thing he did was to open a hole to bury the body. He invited Chery to dinner at his house, taking advantage of the fact that his wife Laura was in David, Chiriqui. It was on a night of April 2010. He does not remember the exact day.

They ate and drank. The idea was to get her drunk and then kill her, but said that the drink did not work, because the woman consumed "a type of drug" that prevented him from getting drunk. It was there when he invited her into the garden behind his house to see the lazy.

He took the bait. Wild Bill pulled out the revolver and shot him in the back of the head. He buried it in the hollow and threw large quantities of garbage on top of his body. He took his cell phone and started sending messages to his family and acquaintances.

"I'm going to another country on a sailboat," was the phrase that came to the phones of those who knew Cheryl.

Then he stayed with the Hotel Casa del Sapo and everything else. Richer than ever, he decided to go on vacation to Boquete, Chiriqui, along with his wife Laura. Being in the cold of the mountains received the call of a friend.

"They're looking for some researchers on Isla Colon," the man said. He soon learned that they had discovered his feat and was

http://impresa.prensa.com/panorama/crimenes-paraiso_0_4735026552.html

[Keith Woolford]

The trial of William Dathan Holbert and Laura Michelle Reese, which has been delayed several times, is now set for May 29th in David.

http://www.telemetro.com/nacionales/Audiencia-Wild-Bill-Michelle-Reese_0_1025298493.html

[Keith Woolford]

Because of the resignation of a defense attorney, it was ordered today, for the third time, to suspend the hearing against the confessed murderer William Dathar Holbert and his partner Laura Michelle Reese, scheduled for next Monday, according to a judicial source.

The superior court of David, western province of Chiriqui, explained in a statement that the Attorney Claudia Alvarado Rojas resigned to continue to defend Reese, "due to lack of payment", so that the session was suspended and scheduled a new for the next 10 July to respond by the death of five immigrants.

and more..

http://www.telemetro.com/nacionales/Suspenden-audiencia-Panama-estadounidense-asesinato_0_1029797951.html

 

[Keith Woolford]

On 12/22/2015 at 8:20 AM, Bonnie said:

What is Wild Bill's status?

William Dathan Holbert and Laura Michelle Reese pled guilty in David this morning to 5 murders.

Homicide prosecutor requested the maximum penalty for William Dathan Hollbert and Laura Michelle Reese,

The Public Prosecutor's Office requested the conviction and maximum penalty, the Superior Court of Chiriqui against the accused William Dathan Holbert and Laura Michelle Reese, during the trial held in the morning of today, for the crime of murder of five American citizens.

The judges of the Superior Court, Carmen Luz de Gracia and Carlos Cuesta, retired to determine the term for the judgment of the five cases, perpetrated by Holbert and Reese, both Americans,for  events that occurred in the Bocas del Toro province between 2009 and 2010 when the allegations were made.

The hearing was held, this Monday at 8:00 a.m., in the Superior Court of the Judicial District against the accused William Dathan Holbert, which was indicted by the prosecution as an author and Laura Michelle Reese, partner of Holbert, primary as an accomplice, for the crime of murder and theft to the 5 foreign nationals who were killed, Sheryl Hughes, Bo Icelar, Michael Brown, his son of 18 years and Manchito Nankatroke.

Before the start of the hearing the accused and his attorney Claudia Alvarado, requested a sentence of 21 years in prison, however, the Public Prosecutor of homicides of the Public Ministry, Emeldo Márquez, refused the proposal of the defense, since the events are very serious and are accredited in the investigation.

The prosecutor Márquez, made a single allegation in the span of an hour, fory the five murders, because it was the cumulative process, asking for the maximum sentence for each of the events.

Both gave up the right to trial by a jury of conscience.

http://ministeriopublico.gob.pa/fiscal-homicidios-pide-pena-maxima-william-dathan-hollbert-laura-michelle-reese/

freetranslation

Edited July 10, 2017 by Keith Woolford

[Penny]

The really scary part is how long you sit in jail before you get a trial. The right to a speedy trial that we North Americans take for granted isn't a right at all in Panama.

I don't think Ozzie has had a trial yet.

[Moderator_02]

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Killer of 5 Americans wants “God not mercy”

Posted on July 10, 2017 in Panama

 

Wild Bill Holbert

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PANAMA’S  Public Prosecutor’s Office  on Monday July 10 called for the maximum homicide penalty for the confessed murderer of five people, by the American William “Wild Bill”  Dathan Holbert. The decision will be announced in a month.

The  Defense asked for a21 years sentence but  the Prosecutor also requested the maximum sentence for robbery and homicide for Holbertand his  ex-wife and compatriot , Laura Michelle Reese, who was arrested with hm and  sent from Nicaragua to Panama in 2010. The three directing magistrates without a jury of conscience by the choice of the accused, accepted a term of 30 days to issue their decision, after hearing the arguments of the parties.

“”I want God not Mercy. I killed them. A man must pay for his mistakes. My mistakes are serious and have no excuse. By my selfishness and evil, there are five people who are not alive.” Said Holbert

He confessed in 2010, upon arrest, that he had murdered five Americans whom he buried on a property he owned in the province of Bocas del Toro.

 

http://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panama/maxium-penalty-demanded-killing-5-americans

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American killer Wild Bill jailed for 47 years

Posted on August 14, 2017 in Panama

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AMERICAN killer William Dathan Holbert,  aka “Wild Bill”, has been sentenced to 47 years and one month in jail for the homicide and robbery of five people in the Panama  Province of Bocas del Toro.

His wife, and accomplice Laura Michelle Reese received a sentence of 26 years and 4 months reports the Public Ministry. Both are behind bars in Chiriqui Province.

They were convicted of the killing and robbery of Bo Barry Lawrence Icelar, Michael Brown, Manchittha Nankratoke, Brown, Watson Seaward Brown and Cheryl Linda Hughes.

The couple were arrested in late July 2010 on the San Juan River, the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Interpol agents of the Judicial Investigation Directorate and Panama Police Brought them to Panamanian territory.

Confessions
Holbert first admitted to having killed the three members of the Brown family, in order to grab their property and also said where WIld Bill had buried them.

In later interrogations,  he confessed to the killing of it knew Bo Icelar and  Cheryl Hughes to appropriate their properties.

The sentence was imposed on  Monday,  August 14 by the magistrates of the Superior Court of Chiriquí.

 

http://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panama/american-wild-bill-killer-jailed-47-years

[Keith Woolford]

Most likely in an effort to keep himself occupied and in the spotlight at the expense of the state, Holbert is appealing his 47-year sentence to the Supreme Court of Panama.

With any luck they'll increase it.

Edited August 17, 2017 by Keith Woolford