ONE WAY TO GO INTO THE HOTEL BUSINESS

‘DEPORTED IN SHACKLES: U.S. COUPLE ACCUSED OF KILLING SEVEN PEOPLE SENT TO FACE JUSTICE IN PANAMA
　
Mail Online
July 30, 2010
　
A couple were deported in shackles from Nicaragua to Panama yesterday to face charges of killing two Americans.
　
The pair, identified by US authorities as William Cortez and his wife, Jane, will also be questioned in connection with the disappearances of five more people.
　
Cortez, who claimed his name was William Dathan Holbert - a suspect featured on the America's Most Wanted website - was arrested in Nicaragua with his wife.

Prosecutors allege the American couple preyed on residents in the scenic coastal region of Bocas del Toro, in what President Ricardo Martinelli termed 'one of the first cases of serial murders' in the Central American country.
　
'He picked out his victims after making their acquaintance,' Assistant Prosecutor Angel Calderon told reporters.
　
'Knowing that nobody would ask about them, he got rid of them.'

The two are charged with killing Cheryl Lynn Hughes, 53, a St. Louis, Missouri-native who lived in Panama for 10 years, and Bo Icelar, understood to be the former owner of a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Assistant Prosecutor said witnesses had come forward after the bodies of Ms Hughes and Mr Icelar were dicovered last week in shallow graves.
　
They were found buried behind a hotel run by Cortez in Bocas del Toro.
　
Investigators in Panama say the killings may have been part of a scheme to steal property on the Caribbean archipelago which is popular with expatriates.
　
Friends and relatives said Ms Hughes owned a hotel which she wanted to sell. Cortez reportedly took it over after she disappeared in March.
　
Police found her body after her estranged husband, Keith Werle, persuaded them to search the hotel.

Mr Werle, who also lives in Panama, said Cortez claimed to have bought the property, telling people Ms Hughes had left the area without saying where she was going.
　
But he became suspcious when Cortez's accounts of the transaction did not add up, he said.
　
He then realised Cortez also owned property that had belonged to Mr Icelar.

The couple moved to Panama together 10 years ago and married after five years. 'If she had met someone and moved on or something she would have thrown that in my face,' he said.
　
And he said several of her dogs, her passport and other items were found at the hotel during the police search last week.
　
It was one of the dogs which led police to Ms Hughes' body in a wooded area behind the house, he added - just hours before officers discovered a second body, identified as Mr Icelar.
　
The gallery owner had also been trying to sell his property in Panama to move back to the United States, his longtime friend, Sharon McConnell said.
　
She became suspicious after Mr Icelar stopped answering his phone on November 30.

Learning Cortez had bought the property, she left numerous messages asking about her friend's whereabouts. But her calls were never returned.
　
Eventually she asked a friend of his in Panama to report him missing.
　
Assistant Director of Investigations Omar Pinzon said Cortez and his wife faced charges of 'crimes against the life and personal integrity' of the victims and would be questioned about the disappearance of five more people - reportedly three Americans and two Panamanian workers.

According to the America's Most Wanted article, William Dathan Holbert was involved in a similar scheme of taking over a house in North Carolina. The article cites police as saying the man travelled under different identities.