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A new book out on Wild Bill

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panamajames

7/13/2016 12:44 EST

"Wild Bill" & THE JOLLY ROGER SOCIAL CLUB

Bocas del Toro is an Atlantic side archipelago in Panama with a funky, laid-back, Margaritaville-like atmosphere that appeals to expats wanting to escape to a Kokomo like Caribbean paradise. The wide variety of expats who've moved to Bocas seem to be a little more adventurous, maybe more "off kilter" than the traditional US expat moving to Panama for a supposedly cheaper but still traditional retirement. So Bill Cortez and his wife Laura fit right in. They came down from the Southeastern US where they claimed to have been real estate investors who'd made a lot of money and were eager for a more laid-back life. Panama, and particularly Bocas, has always had a number of "larger-than-life" expat characters, and Bill was certainly one. He was big, brash, loud, ran a bar and rooming house with a pirate theme and the saying "you check in but never check out." His larger-than-life personality earned him the moniker "Wild Bill."
wild billBocas, and to some extent Panama, has always appealed to expat who, for whatever reason, wanted to be "off" or at least "under" the radar. Michael Brown, his wife, and teenage son, lived a Bocas life that was the opposite of Wild Bill's. And there was, it would turn out later, a good reason. Brown was in the witness protection program having turned witness against several drug dealers back in the United States. Wild Bill & Brown were casual acquaintances and when the Browns disappeared from the Bocas scene and Wild Bill and his wife were living in their home, folks just assumed that the Browns had returned to the States for a while and that Bill and Laura were house sitting.
Eventually, and it's a riveting story, it would turn out that Bill Cortez was actually William Dathan Holbert with a very checkered past and wanted by authorities in the US. Bill and Laura had befriended the Browns and found out where the Browns had hidden the bearer bonds giving them ownership to their property. They had then taken the Browns and executed father, mother and son and moved into their home!
It took years to unravel this story and in the end Holbert confessed to killing five people in Panama and one in Costa Rica to get their money and properties. Prosecutors say Holbert befriended the victims, shot them in the head, buried their bodies, and then stole their homes and businesses.
Obviously riveting material for a book.
And the book, THE JOLLY ROGER SOCIAL CLUB, by Nick Foster has just been released and is available on Amazon. The book is a "true story of a killer in paradise," the entire story of Holbert, the murders, and how the truth came to light and the Holberts were captured. Fascinating, fascinating stuff!
About a year ago Richard Detrich was talking at the Boquete Book Club luncheon and noticed this one guy, sitting alone in the back of the room, taking notes. Curious, he approached him after the meeting and introduced himself. It was Nick Foster. He explained that he was writing a book about "Wild Bill." They got to talking. Nick had already interviewed Holbert at David prison and had two more scheduled interviews, one the next day. From this talk Foster knew Richard had been a pastor and he wanted to talk. He had spoken with Holbert who had claimed to be a born-again Christian. [Today, 2016, Holbert claims to be leading a prison ministry in David prison.] What perplexed Foster was that Holbert, although claiming to be born-again, had no remorse for the killings. Holbert had the Brown's then sixteen-year-old son kneel to the ground and then shot the kid in the head. Boom! Point blank! Nick, who has a son, was having difficulty wrapping his head around how you could ask God to forgive you, then claim he has, and feel no remorse for such a cold-blooded killing.
The book is just out. Like many murder books it is fascinating, and the way in which all this came to light is amazing, yet at the same time the story is disturbing. And it happened right here to folks just like the rest of us. THE JOLLY ROGER SOCIAL CLUB

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BoqueteGirl

7/13/2016 19:55 EST

Thanks PJ, going to order the book today.

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RICOBREEZE802MARK

7/14/2016 00:35 EST

I spent all day friday with bill and his wife and all day and night sat. He came to my home and had a look around. we spent many hours talking about life and what laid ahead for them both. he was torn between a huge job for a investment firm which he said his wife didn't want him to take or taking it. we met and talked all night at ty's sport bar which happens to be right behind my house. He knew I had two little girls both under 8 and a wife. all this was about two weeks before they went on the run. He asked ty and his wife and me and my family to come up to their place in Bocas for the weekend, we all said sounded great it's a date, and a week before we had tried to call him to see if everything was set but no answer. I know now, they were on the run at that time, and now I know that has plan was to kill ty and michelle to take over their bar, and then kill my whole family to take over our home. Yes this is what type of man he is, willing to shoot two little girls in the back of the head for property.

bill was a leader with the white power skin heads in the states, he took pride in being the large guy in the room and being loud to get everyone to look up to him. that is the same thing he did once he got here as well, he loved making people think he was someone he was not, and being the center of everything.

He is smart as well, he knows when and how to change to get what he wants. while in prison here he ran a bunch of scams where he would steal pretty young girls photo's off the web and post ad's on craigslist for love or sex. writing men back in the states thinking they were writing with a young pretty lady who was falling for them. in the end it was just a way for bill to get those men to send a few dollars his way.

Now after he has been caught and in jail, he has to find a way to make a few bucks, so he does what most do TURN TO GOD. because people who love the lord, try to forgive every sin and not judge a person, and he wants to show these people that he has seen and found the right path, why? same reason some poor old lady sends a tv preacher what little money she has, and that is what he knows and the game he is playing. poor me, I found the lord, look I am helping to bring others out of the darkness and save them, if the lord can forgive me, we all have hope. all the lives he took he feels no remorse for, he did it and would do it again to feed his need for wealth and power, to have control.

The sad part about all of this is without some of the family members and don winners pushing the police here to get on this case, as well as don himself helping find those bodies, bill might never had been caught. cher, was divorced, lived alone on her own island, home and bar, he killed her, bo, single, stayed by himself pretty much, killed him and took his house. both had no family here, then there was a lawyer bill got to know and over drinks the lawyer told bill how he had signed his wife's name to get a loan on their house about 120k and took off and left her and their children behind, he was easy because that guy didn't want to be found by family, plus 120k big pay day. then the brown family, home and a lot of farm land, why them? well mr brown was running from the law from a drug bust many years ago where at court he jumped out a window and has been on the run for years. so this is why when he didn't get in touch with a daughter he had left behind for a while, she just thought that maybe they had to up and move because the cops were getting to close and she would hear from her dad later. These are the type people he wanted. and we will never know but I believe bill has a much bigger body count that hasn't been counting yet.

Mad? yeah I'm mad, years later, but not a day goes by that I don't think of this subhuman shooting my daughters in the back of the head. wanting to go and sit across from him and look him in the eyes and tell him I know what you planned for all of us, jailer please open this gate and allow me 5 mins with this waste of a human. but then I know that will not happen, even me sitting across from him and telling him, I know, won't do a bit of good, because he will just explain it all away and it's not worth me having to hear that. Nor will getting that few minutes alone with him, a quick death is far to good for this person, I want to see him sit there for years and slowing rot away. already he has lost over a hundred or more pounds.

MAD?> heck yes at myself, for being a trusting person, for being open with a person I had just met and letting all my guards down, it has not happen since nor will it ever again.

expats are draw to other expats down here, because we are from the same cloth, we are fast to try to make new friends, and that is were we make mistakes. to rush that friendship. bill and Laura, bill picked up on my southern draw so he was from tx all the sudden, I'm a ex cop, his father was a federal judge. all lies, another southern young man I met and befriended ended up being a con man, stole peoples ID'S and after checking out their homes he and a crew came back and robbed them. Not I but others, and he was sent to jail here in panama for a few years, got out, was sent back to the states where a warrant for him was waiting, then he got out of that and last I heard had returned to panama, How I still don't know. another expat in the boating family sank his boat and killed two other men for theirs.

so in closing when you first come here and for you people who have been here a while, meeting new people take it slow, don't open up all the way and open your life to them until you really know the person you are calling friend. many expats down here are broke, and trying to pull scams, and many are on the run for one thing or the other. just keep that in mind

One last point I would like to make and I don't have a answer for, is who helped bill? who stamped and recorded all the paperwork on all the things he killed for? car titles, home titles, boat titles, land titles, taking funds out of a dead mans account, changing ownership of corp. paperwork. did he do it all and it just passed or is there someone still out there that has not been charged that did all of it and paid someone to look the other way and stamp it.

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Panama2017

7/14/2016 07:19 EST

Interesting story Ricobreeze802mark, thanks for sharing. Do you plan to buy this book?

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BoqueteGirl

7/14/2016 10:04 EST

@Ricobreeze802Mark

Very interesting story. But your comments of making friends here is RIGHT ON. We have some wonderful Expats and Panamanians, please use your due diligence when making them your friend. You are retired and have LOTS of time to create friendships that can be long lasting and very rewarding.

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