0:01

High listeners. A quick note before we

0:03

start. A previous version of this

0:05

episode implied that two people, Sergio

0:08

Rodriguez and Mariano Diaz, had

0:10

had direct telephone contact with

0:12

one another. That section has

0:15

been updated for clarity. Thanks,

0:17

and here's episode three. Felix

0:22

Molina is a former radio journalist

0:24

who lives in Montreal, Canada,

0:27

but his home is Honduras,

0:29

where his family is, his friends,

0:32

the colleagues he worked alongside for decades.

0:36

But that's the country he can't return to.

0:39

He says, it just isn't safe

0:41

for him. You

0:45

you always think about going back.

0:48

It's just that living in exile

0:51

isn't the solution. Exile

0:53

is just a way to prolong

0:55

my life. Alex Celio is

1:02

the reason why Felix had to leave

1:04

Honduras can't be separated

1:06

from the story of Berta Cassarus's

1:09

murder. The two of them met

1:11

in the nineteen nineties. Felix

1:13

was working for a radio station where

1:15

he covered human rights and indigenous issues.

1:18

Naturally, his path crossed

1:20

with Bertasana

1:24

on a flint. She

1:26

seemed like an important source for

1:28

a subject that I was passionate

1:30

about the visibility of those

1:32

communities that were culturally distinct

1:35

and Nonduras the ones that for years

1:37

we've been taught about or wrongly

1:40

taught about in school or Brindio.

1:45

Over the next two decades, Felix

1:48

went on to host a variety of radio

1:50

programs in Honduras, and

1:52

he often reached out to Berta. She

1:54

became something more than a source. She

1:57

was also a good friend, one he respected

2:00

dania characteristic.

2:06

She had this characteristic where

2:08

she'd laugh almost always,

2:11

and I'd even say that included when

2:13

she was going after people, giving them

2:15

grief and reprimanding them.

2:17

Even then she'd be smiling fambience.

2:22

But the very last time Felix

2:24

Sawberta, that playful

2:26

quality had been replaced by something

2:28

heavier. He spotted her

2:31

unexpectedly at an airport

2:33

in El Salvador. Both of them

2:35

were catching connecting flights. He

2:37

guesses it was about a week before her murder.

2:41

Felix could tell Berta was worried about

2:43

something. In fact, she

2:45

straight up told him so. Never

2:51

before had she been so

2:54

convinced she'd be assassinated

2:57

as she was in that conversation.

2:59

Never Over

3:04

the years, Felix had talked to Berta

3:06

many times about the dangers activists

3:09

faced in Honduras, but

3:11

not with this sense of urgency. She

3:13

seemed convinced something bad was

3:15

going to happen, and soon she

3:21

was certain of it. She said, they're gonna

3:23

kill me, Felix. They're gonna kill me, Libant

3:26

Felix. When

3:31

Berta said they were going to kill

3:33

her, Felix says she was talking

3:35

about the people working for Dessa, the

3:38

company overseeing the hydro electric projects

3:40

she'd been protesting. About

3:43

a week after that encounter at the airport,

3:46

Berta was dead, and Felix

3:48

started digging into Dessa, trying

3:50

to find out all he could about it. He

3:53

worked alongside an international human

3:55

rights organization. He won't reveal

3:57

the group's name. It says that at a high

4:00

aired private investigators to poke

4:02

around the company. Joe

4:05

Dania Buenola I

4:09

had a good relationship

4:12

with this organization for the past

4:14

fifteen years. They trusted

4:17

my work, in my journalistic credibility,

4:20

and they shared with me the

4:22

preliminary findings of their investigation.

4:26

Those preliminary findings included

4:28

the articles of incorporation for

4:30

the company. This a a

4:32

lacta constitute. It

4:37

was now Monday May two, exactly

4:40

two months after Barta's murder,

4:43

and for the remainder of this episode, we're

4:45

going to stay here. On this day,

4:48

it was Labor Day for much of Latin

4:50

America, a day off, but

4:52

not for Felix. If they around

4:54

Dia normal, this

4:58

was normal work day for

5:00

me, while everyone else was

5:03

probably resting, probably Misconsando.

5:07

He got out of bed that morning expecting

5:09

a slow, easy day. Neither

5:12

he nor the rest of Honduras

5:14

could have realized how much would change

5:16

over the course of that day. The

5:18

lid would be ripped off Barta's

5:21

investigation, new details

5:23

and new evidence would be revealed, and

5:26

the lives of several people Felix

5:28

included would permanently

5:30

veer into new directions. I'm

5:39

monterereel for Bloomberg Green and

5:42

the Story of may Sewo is

5:45

this episode of Blood Ripping. M

6:05

Felix hosted a radio show into

6:07

Goosagalpa, the Honduran capital.

6:10

As it happened, his guest on may Sewod

6:12

was going to be Berte Cassarus's oldest

6:14

daughter, Olivia. Not

6:17

long after Felix got out of bed, he

6:19

opened his computer. A few

6:22

days before, that nonprofit

6:24

group he'd been working with had provided

6:26

him a file information

6:28

they dug up about Dessa, the hydro

6:30

electric company in Honduras.

6:33

It's not always easy to figure out who really

6:35

runs a company or whose money is

6:37

behind it. Records can be difficult

6:40

to access, and even when they are

6:42

available, they're often full

6:44

of holes. But this

6:46

document listed names of

6:49

some of Dessa's executives and shareholders.

6:52

Many of those names hadn't been revealed

6:54

to the public yet. As soon

6:56

as he saw it, Felix had wanted to publish

6:59

it, to send it out to the world, but

7:01

a mentor of his warned there might be

7:04

risks Pucia.

7:08

She advised me to use caution.

7:11

She said it was dangerous, and

7:13

in fact I understood that comeboy

7:15

effectivement. But

7:21

on that Monday morning, Felix

7:24

opened his Facebook page and

7:26

took the leap. He posted

7:28

the document. Then he got

7:31

ready for work, stepped outside

7:33

and flagged a taxi to go to the radio

7:35

studio. Traffic

7:38

was lighter than usual because of the holiday,

7:41

but one road was still pretty busy,

7:44

the one that runs right in front of the presidential

7:46

Palace and passed some of the city's

7:48

swankiest hotels.

7:55

We were waiting at the stoplight

7:57

for the light to change and through

7:59

this I was distracted

8:01

because it was a relaxed day

8:04

and always in this intersection

8:06

there's constantly people around,

8:09

street vendors, people asking for

8:11

money, jugglers, street artists.

8:15

It's a stufflight that's always full

8:17

of street performers. It was a

8:19

spectacle that was too common for me

8:21

to be concerned about them. But

8:29

the taxi driver was keeping an

8:31

eye on the scene, and that's

8:33

when he noticed a young woman with blonde

8:35

hair coming up behind the car.

8:38

She was holding a gun. But

8:41

before the driver could tell Felix about

8:43

her and

8:50

another man came from another

8:52

direction towards the taxi and

8:55

he tried to unexpectedly

8:57

and forcibly grab my arm. I

9:00

reacted by throwing myself all the way

9:02

to the other side of the back seat of the taxi.

9:05

In pre taxi,

9:12

the driver slammed his foot on the gas

9:14

to escape. Felix was still

9:16

holding his cell phone as the taxi lurched

9:18

forward, tires squealing, and

9:22

as a moment conductors

9:27

a salto. At that moment,

9:30

the taxi driver had no doubt that

9:32

this was an assault, and he

9:34

fled the scene, as they say, and

9:36

going the wrong way to get us

9:38

to safety. Pul delamos

9:44

and contra villa robberies

9:57

are pretty common in Honduras. Felix

10:00

figured the couple probably had just wanted to steal

10:02

his cell phone. He considered himself

10:04

lucky to have held onto it and

10:07

to his life when he finally

10:10

made it into the studio. Felix

10:12

described the attempted robbery in a Facebook

10:14

post. He ended it by typing,

10:18

what a country we live in? Pensicki

10:22

it Alava.

10:25

I thought it was something that happened to thousands

10:28

of people in Honduras. They rubbed

10:31

phones and if people resist,

10:33

they kill them.

10:41

Maybe it was just a routine,

10:43

though terrifying example of

10:45

petty street crime. Or

10:48

was there more to it than that? For

10:51

Felix, that question would

10:53

grow bigger and scarier

10:55

as the day pushed on. The

11:06

Morning of May two also got

11:08

off to a rocky start for Sergio Rodriguez.

11:12

Remember Sergio. He was

11:14

Dessa's point man for the ahwa's Arca

11:16

Damn and Rio Blanco, where Berta

11:18

had rallied protesters against the project.

11:21

Sergio had started off as the man

11:24

in charge of environmental standards. Later

11:27

his duties expanded to include

11:29

community relations. After

11:32

Berta was killed Some of

11:34

her colleagues had told investigators

11:37

that Sergio had threatened her,

11:40

and so a couple of weeks after the

11:42

murder, the investigators

11:44

called him in to ask him about it. He

11:46

denied the threats. After

11:49

that questioning, they also

11:51

made Sergio list his address into

11:53

Goosey Galpa in case they needed

11:55

to reach him. Sergio had

11:57

an apartment in the capital, but that

12:00

not the address he listed. Instead,

12:03

he told them the address of his mother's

12:06

house. He says

12:08

he wasn't trying to deceive them, and he

12:10

didn't really think anything about it until

12:13

that morning on May two, the

12:15

same morning when Felix Molina

12:18

had experienced that strange encounter in

12:20

the taxicab. That

12:25

morning, Sergio's phone

12:28

woke him up at about five thirty. It

12:31

was his attorney calling. He

12:33

told Sergio the police had a warrant

12:35

to search what they thought was

12:37

his house. So Sergio

12:40

got out of bed, put on a yellow Polo

12:42

shirt and a pair of khakis, and

12:44

went to his mom's.

12:49

When I got there, I saw all the police

12:51

cars and military vehicles, people

12:53

wearing balaclavas from the Federal Agency

12:55

of Investigation and the prosecutors.

12:59

I was there before or six in the morning at my

13:01

mom's and they

13:03

told me I was being arrested for the death

13:05

of Betts. As

13:17

they read him his rights, Sergio

13:20

watched them search every corner

13:22

of the house. They searched one

13:24

bedroom at a time, going

13:26

through the closets, the bathrooms.

13:29

Officers were noting the colors of the closet

13:31

doors and the bedspreads. His

13:34

mother struggled to sort through the confusion

13:38

in lyme pres Obviously,

13:43

I was concerned about the impression this

13:45

had on my mom. My mom

13:47

is an eighty four year old woman. I

13:50

was worried about her health, so

13:53

I asked them, please, please, could

13:55

you avoid exposing me to the media?

14:00

VANDAM released. The

14:03

investigators had other priorities

14:06

they were hunting for evidence. The

14:09

only item of note they collected from this

14:11

raid was Sergio's cell phone,

14:14

a gold Samsung Galaxy Edge

14:16

with a black case. But

14:19

this wasn't the only place being searched

14:22

that morning. At the exact

14:24

same time, ten separate

14:26

teams of investigators and military

14:28

police were launching simultaneous

14:31

raids. While Sergio watched

14:33

them pick apart his mother's place, another

14:36

team was rifling through the Dessa offices

14:39

inside it to goose Galpa high rise,

14:42

and other teams were raiding the houses

14:44

of five other men. Three

14:47

of those men would be arrested that

14:49

same morning, along with

14:51

Sergio.

14:59

By the time of police escorted Sergio

15:01

out of his mother's house, dozens

15:04

of reporters were outside. Their

15:06

cameras were ready as he was escorted

15:09

past them. The police draped

15:11

a fuzzy yellow blanket over Sergio's

15:14

head and led him into the back seat

15:16

of an unmarked car. Sergio's

15:19

request to the police to keep

15:21

things quiet apparently

15:23

had backfired. Thea

15:26

Luno from

15:29

Mikasa. The only place

15:31

the media showed up was

15:33

my house, Sergio, and

15:36

the news of the arrests flooded

15:39

the airwaves in Honduras that morning. Being

15:43

practical, military

15:48

spokesman listed the names of Sergio

15:51

and the three others who've been arrested

15:53

that morning. The first

15:55

was a former Honduran military officer

15:57

who previously had been in charge of secure

16:00

Purity Fordessa, near the Gualukakee

16:02

River. The second

16:04

was a veteran of the Hondurans Special

16:06

Forces, an army major who

16:08

worked in military intelligence. The

16:11

third was a year old

16:14

one of at least three suspected cicadios,

16:17

or hitman hired to kill albert

16:19

To the police

16:21

hauled all four men to a federal

16:23

building into Gooseagalpa.

16:26

Meanwhile, other officers

16:28

were cataloging the evidence collected

16:30

during the raids. They

16:32

had cell phones, tablets,

16:35

and hard drives. Agents

16:37

turned the home of the accused hitman inside

16:40

out, and then they searched

16:42

the home next door, where his twin

16:44

brother lived. They stripped

16:47

the sheets from the beds and lifted

16:49

the mattresses. Underneath

16:51

one mattress they found

16:53

something interesting, a gun

16:56

with a white plated handle. It

16:59

was a Smith and Wesson thirty eight special,

17:02

the same kind of gun that had

17:05

killed Berta.

17:22

Police called it Operation

17:25

Jaguar. For weeks,

17:28

the investigators had been planning this morning

17:30

of raids in the two

17:32

months after the murder. The Cassarra's

17:35

family and really everyone

17:37

in Honduras saw the investigation

17:40

as a series of missteps. Those

17:43

missteps were real, and investigators

17:45

wasted weeks following too many

17:47

false leads. They'd

17:50

seemed too suspicious of Berta's friends,

17:53

her colleagues, and especially

17:55

of Gustavo Castro. Suberta's

17:58

family and colleagues. It seemed

18:00

in those early days that no one was looking

18:02

at Dessa the hydro Electric Company.

18:05

But now, exactly two months after

18:07

the murder, it was clear that investigators

18:10

had in fact shifted their

18:12

focus away from Barta's close

18:15

friends. Several disconnected

18:17

clues had come together, and

18:19

police believed they pointed to

18:21

Dessa. A couple of days

18:24

after the murder, police had gotten

18:26

their hands on a thumb drive, the

18:28

kind you pop into a USB port on

18:30

a computer. This drive

18:32

actually had been plugged into a security

18:35

camera. That camera had

18:37

captured grainy images of the road

18:39

leading into Bartas subdivision. Investigators

18:43

scanned the files on the thumb drive and

18:45

found the footage from the night Rita

18:47

was killed. On

18:50

that video, at PM,

18:53

you see headlights from a vehicle nearing

18:55

the subdivision. The vehicle

18:58

stops and three p bolt

19:00

visible only as silhouettes run

19:03

through the camera frame. You

19:06

can't make out any faces.

19:10

This was one of the first pieces of evidence

19:13

that gave investigators an idea

19:15

of what they now think really happened

19:18

on the night of Berta's murder. It

19:20

was just the start. Days

19:30

after the murder, police pulled data

19:33

from the cellular phone towers closest

19:35

to Berta's house, but it

19:37

took them about five weeks to analyze

19:39

it. Aside from the other residents

19:42

of the subdivision, five cell

19:44

phones had been active near Berta's house

19:46

surround the time of the murder. The

19:49

police believed that three of those phones

19:51

belonged to the hitman, including

19:53

one who had been arrested on May two at

19:56

the same time as Sergio Rodriguez.

19:59

Sarah Geo's phone could not be traced

20:01

to the subdivision that night, but that

20:04

didn't mean he was cleared. There

20:06

was still more evidence to collect. Bread

20:08

crumbs of The police were following clues

20:11

that seemed to connect Dessa

20:13

to the others who had been at the scene of the crime.

20:17

One of the other three men arrested in the early

20:19

morning raids of May two was named

20:21

Mariano Diaz. He

20:23

was the army major, the guy who worked

20:25

in military intelligence. But

20:28

months before Berta's murder on

20:30

during investigators had started keeping

20:33

an eye on him. This had nothing

20:35

to do with Berta, at least not at

20:37

first. They thought Diaz might

20:39

be linked to a drug trafficking and kidnapping

20:42

ring. They began tracing

20:44

his phone calls. That

20:47

phone tap turned out to be an incredible

20:50

stroke of luck. After Berta

20:52

was killed, investigators realized

20:54

that Diaz had been in contact

20:57

with people connected to Dessa.

21:03

The more they looked at the phone records, the

21:06

more connections emerged. Both

21:09

Sergio and Diaz had

21:11

also been talking to the former deaths As

21:13

security chief, a man named

21:15

Douglas Bustillo. He

21:17

also would be arrested in the raids

21:19

of may Sewo. Bustillo,

21:22

in turn, had also been

21:24

in regular contact with two suspected

21:27

gunmen that police had tracked

21:29

a Berta's house the night of the murder.

21:32

All of this information justified

21:34

the warrant the police used for the May second

21:37

raids. Investigators

21:39

laid out a hypothetical plot they

21:41

believed Sergio and Diaz, the

21:43

expert in military intelligence, were

21:46

each involved in planning separate aspects

21:48

of the murder. Sergio,

21:50

they said, helped surveil Berto through

21:53

a network of informants. Diaz

21:56

had handled other details, like getting

21:58

the guns in the vehicle used for the crime.

22:02

Both of them separately were in contact

22:04

with the former desks A security chief,

22:07

Bustillo. The police

22:09

alleged Boustillo helped put

22:11

together the team of cicarios,

22:14

low level criminals willing to

22:16

kill for a payday. The

22:19

company immediately denied

22:22

all involvement in the murder and

22:24

continues to dispute this interpretation

22:26

of events, But for investigators

22:29

it emerged as a working theory. They

22:33

still needed proof, of course, and

22:35

that was the mission of the raids that morning,

22:38

to collect cell phones, computers,

22:40

and tablets, anything that

22:43

might be hiding more evidence. That

22:46

thirty eight special they found under a

22:48

mattress seemed to back up

22:50

the investigator's theory, or

22:52

at least it didn't contradict it.

22:55

A ballistics expert would later examine

22:57

the gun alongside some of this

23:00

shell fragments collected in Bertha's

23:02

house. They matched.

23:13

That afternoon, Sergio and

23:16

the other three men were locked behind

23:18

bars. They

23:23

held me in preventative detention and

23:27

took me to a maximum security prison.

23:29

It was a huge shock. He

23:34

listened to other inmates screaming, and

23:37

then all of a sudden, everything

23:41

went dark. Ceph

23:43

and Lewis. The electricity went

23:45

out, and the first

23:47

thing I thought was that they were going to kill

23:49

me because of all

23:51

the stories you hear about what it's like in the

23:53

federal penitentiary and Penitentially,

23:58

it's late afternoon out on May second,

24:02

Felix Molina is inside the radio

24:04

studio like everyone else.

24:07

He's been following the news, catching

24:09

reports about the raids and the arrests.

24:12

Felix had planned to talk to Barratt's oldest

24:14

daughter, Olivia on his show that

24:16

afternoon, but the Cassara's

24:19

family had been caught off guard by the events

24:21

of that morning. They first learned

24:23

of the raids when reporters

24:25

started calling them. Olivia

24:28

and her sisters said that because they didn't know

24:30

anything about the arrests, they

24:32

couldn't be sure that the true architects

24:35

of the assassination had been captured.

24:38

Olivia said that the four men arrested

24:41

might have been fall guys.

24:46

We don't trust the judicial system in

24:49

this country. We don't believe in it.

24:53

Felix also had his doubts, and

24:56

after the attempted robbery that morning,

24:59

he was thinking a lot about his

25:01

own safety. I

25:04

mentioned it on air, and

25:06

there were people who heard this and

25:09

who saw my Facebook post and

25:11

who were worried for me. He call me

25:14

post. Those

25:16

calls from concerned listeners included

25:19

one from members of a local human

25:21

rights organization. They

25:23

invited Felix to their office to tell

25:25

them more about the assault. They

25:28

knew Felix had publicly posted the names

25:30

of Death's executives and investors

25:33

earlier that morning, and they

25:35

suspected the assault might be connected

25:37

to that. So late that

25:39

afternoon, Felix caught another

25:42

cab to their office. He

25:44

told them all the details of the hold up

25:46

once he got there, about how

25:48

the woman and the man had threatened him at

25:50

gunpoint, how is quick thinking

25:52

taxi driver had sped away

25:55

just in time. By the time

25:57

the meeting was over and it was time for him

25:59

to go, Felix actually felt

26:01

a little nervous those

26:05

personas,

26:07

And I asked two

26:10

people who were there at the office

26:12

at the time if they'd come with me

26:14

outside to look for a taxi. And

26:16

it took a long time to find

26:19

a cab to take me back to my house.

26:21

Finally I grabbed the street taxi like

26:23

I always do, Como

26:29

on tax On

26:31

his way home, he realized he

26:33

was seeing the same familiar buildings,

26:36

the same familiar streets that

26:38

he'd passed by earlier in the day on

26:40

his way to work. This

26:43

was the avenue where he had been assaulted

26:45

that morning, near the Presidential

26:48

Palace by the five star hotels.

26:52

The taxi made its way to the very

26:54

street light where Felix had narrowly

26:57

escaped danger earlier that morning.

27:00

He sat there in the taxi waiting

27:02

for the light to change, just like before, but

27:05

this time he was paying attention.

27:08

His eyes scanned the street. He

27:10

noticed movement around the car.

27:13

It didn't feel right, yea

27:15

mislus generals

27:19

personas sin person, and

27:23

that the same street light. This

27:25

time it wasn't two people, but rather five

27:28

people who surrounded the taxi while we waited

27:30

for the light to change. They told me, this

27:33

time you won't escape. He

27:37

may staves.

27:42

A man reached into the taxi and

27:44

grabbed Felix with one hand. In

27:46

his other hand, the man held a pistol

27:50

He made the sparrow. He

27:52

shot me point blank.

28:06

La valla. The

28:10

bullet that he shot at me went through both

28:13

my legs. The assailants

28:15

fled, and a group of bystanders

28:17

rushed to Felix's taxi to see

28:19

if they could help. I

28:26

really could have bled to death in the taxi.

28:28

I was scared, crying. I

28:31

didn't know what to do. The people

28:33

insisted taking me to the hospital because

28:36

I couldn't move, I couldn't get up

28:38

from the seat. I couldn't feel my legs.

28:41

So finally I got to the public hospital,

28:44

the teaching hospital, and just as I

28:46

got to the entrance of the hospital, I

28:48

lost consciousness. Who's

28:53

hospital. Felix had

28:55

spent that late morning devouring media

28:58

reports about the arrests in Barton's

29:00

murder case. Now as

29:03

evening approached, he himself

29:06

had become part of the news and

29:08

Honduras, a prominent radio journalist

29:11

has been shot four times but survived.

29:14

Felix Molina was reportedly attacked

29:16

twice in the same day Monday. He

29:19

was shot twice in each leg, and a

29:21

statement released by human rights group Molina

29:23

said he believed he was directly targeted

29:26

and vowed to continue practicing journalism

29:28

without fear. He said, quote,

29:31

I declare myself a survivor

29:33

of the insecurity that the majority of

29:35

the country faces. Molina

29:37

shooting came on the eve of

29:40

World Press Freedom Day. So

29:43

Felix is in his hospital bit and

29:45

he's replaying everything in his mind.

29:48

The news that morning suggested

29:50

that current and former military officials,

29:53

including at least one in military

29:55

intelligence, had been detained

29:58

in Barton's murder, and

30:00

Felix begins to think about the assault

30:02

on him. It seems so organized,

30:05

so pre planned, and

30:07

he's growing convinced both

30:10

of the assaults against him that day

30:12

we're connected to Berta's murder the

30:16

Swiss Siskyspitale.

30:21

After the second attack, after

30:23

I was in the hospital, I started to reflect

30:26

on this, on the motus of arandi of criminal

30:29

organizations in Honduras, it

30:31

was all there in assassination of Bertha.

30:34

You had military men who were experts

30:37

and intelligence trained by the Special

30:39

Forces, and then you had hired

30:41

hitman without experience as a way to

30:43

mislead investigations. So

30:46

I started to reflect that what happened

30:49

to me wasn't just an everyday

30:51

crime, that it was a consequence

30:53

of my coverage of the story of Verta Casis.

30:57

His assailants were never caught, and

31:00

he can't prove they were connected

31:02

to the company or its shareholders,

31:05

who completely deny all involvement.

31:08

But Felix is convinced that

31:11

the events of that day amounted

31:13

to more than a chain of coincidences.

31:18

And now now I can say

31:20

without any doubt that I suffered

31:23

the consequences of reporting on the work

31:25

and on the assassination of Berta cas

31:27

It is definitely covert.

31:32

Ultravajo definite.

31:45

It's nighttime now. On May two, the

31:48

President of Honduras, Juan

31:50

Orlando Hernandez, held a press

31:52

conference a few hours earlier to celebrate

31:55

the four arrests. Now,

31:57

he's preparing for a trip the

32:00

next morning. He needs to be in Washington, d

32:02

C. That's where an energy

32:04

summit is being held for leaders from the US,

32:07

Mexico, and the Caribbean. Hernandez

32:10

is scheduled to meet with some very

32:12

high profile attendees at that conference.

32:16

Vice President Joe Biden is one

32:18

of them. Hernandez wants to assure

32:20

him that renewable energy projects

32:23

like hydro electric dams, our

32:25

developments worth backing and

32:28

integrated North America working to promote

32:31

energy security beyond our borders can

32:33

be a major asset for the entire

32:36

hemisphere, and it is profoundly

32:38

it's profoundly in the self interest of

32:41

the United States to see the Caribbean country

32:44

succeed. Secretary of

32:46

State John Kerry has been optimistic

32:48

about energy partnerships with Central

32:50

American countries, especially

32:52

those countries encouraging private

32:55

sector involvement. Every

32:57

one of US, I think, should take

32:59

note of the that the Caribbean

33:01

and Central American nations continue

33:03

to pursue legal, regulatory

33:06

and policy reforms. Are going to modernize

33:08

and integrate their energy systems

33:10

and make private sector clean energy more

33:12

attractive in all of those places. Clean

33:16

energy for Hernandez government,

33:19

hydro electric projects like the Awazarka

33:21

Dam. We're supposed to be the lynch

33:23

pins in Honduras's economic

33:26

renaissance. Fernandez

33:28

himself, back when he was the head

33:31

of the Honduran National Congress, had

33:33

been the one to draft that strategy. But

33:36

now Barta's killing was

33:39

a black cloud over all of that. Hernandez

33:42

like to say that Honduras was open for

33:44

business, but who is going to pour money

33:47

into a local industry that was marred

33:50

by high profile scandal in violence.

33:54

The timing of all of this didn't

33:56

sit right with Barta's family. Was

33:59

it all a big quin students? Exactly

34:02

one day before the President

34:04

of Honduras attends a summit to

34:06

promote his renewable energy agenda,

34:09

his government, to great fanfare,

34:12

announces the arrests of Berta's

34:14

killers. The

34:19

Cassaris family issued a statement online

34:22

and above it they posted photos the

34:24

ones that the government released that day of

34:27

agents standing next to a handcuffed

34:29

Sergio Rodriguez. The

34:31

statement began. The Honduran

34:33

government made a surprise announcement on Monday

34:36

morning, claiming to have caught the culprits

34:38

who assassinated Berta. The

34:40

most impressive detail is

34:42

that they were able to snap many well

34:44

posed photos of those culprits alongside

34:47

federal agents. Despite

34:50

this show, we continue

34:52

our call for an independence international

34:55

investigation. Even

34:58

after the arrests, the family

35:00

still didn't trust the Honduran investigators.

35:11

That evening, Berta's daughter, Bertita

35:14

Isabelle, was monitoring

35:16

everything that was unfolding from thousands

35:19

of miles away in Barcelona. She

35:22

and others from Copaine had met with members

35:24

of the European Parliament that week. They

35:27

were lobbying for support. Bertita

35:30

was calling for an international investigation

35:33

into her mom's murder. The

35:35

arrest that morning didn't satisfy

35:38

her. On the night

35:40

of May sewo Bertita isabel

35:42

stood on a concert stage. She

35:45

was next to Manu Chow, French

35:48

and Spanish rock star who sold millions

35:50

of albums in Europe and Latin America.

36:02

Bar Tita Isabel is saying that her mother

36:04

didn't die. She multiplied

36:07

that's become a rallying cry that bears

36:09

his family and their backers have spread around

36:12

the world. The family is trying

36:14

to assemble an international team of lawyers

36:16

and investigators to re examine

36:19

the evidence in the case, to look

36:21

at it all with fresh eyes. Even

36:24

after the arrests of that day, She

36:27

and her family believe the Honduran investigation

36:29

has been corrupted from the start. Sergio

36:33

Rodriguez was a mid level employee

36:35

of the hydro electric company bart

36:38

His family suspects he was a puppet following

36:41

a plan that had been masterminded by

36:43

his superiors, perhaps

36:45

some of the same people whose names

36:47

had appeared on the document that Felix

36:50

Molina had posted on his Facebook page

36:52

earlier that morning. In

36:54

the next couple of months, the family

36:57

would continue to travel to the United

36:59

States and around the world, and

37:01

that international team of investigators would

37:03

take shape. After

37:07

the raids of the morning of May two, on

37:09

during investigators as well as

37:12

that international team, would have

37:14

a lot more information to sift through. The

37:17

phones that had been confiscated were full

37:19

of information. The most interesting

37:22

evidence by far was

37:24

the WhatsApp text messages pulled from

37:26

them, and so we got fifty

37:28

five gigs of data

37:32

they had extracted from their cell phones,

37:35

which was a tiny fraction of

37:38

the data, and it was about pages.

37:45

Those messages will become the

37:47

foundation of the case. A

37:50

new, far more dramatic story

37:52

will take shape, one that will lead

37:54

investigators towards the person they'll

37:56

describe as the mastermind

37:59

behind the murder. That's next

38:01

time on Blood River. M.

38:16

Blood River is written and reported by

38:19

me monte Reel top

38:21

Forehes is our senior producer. My

38:24

Aquava is our associate producer.

38:27

A theme was composed and performed by

38:29

Sena Rubinos. Special

38:31

thanks to Carlos Rodriguez. Francesca

38:35

Levi is the head of Bloomberg Podcast.

38:38

Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already,

38:41

and if you like what you hear, please leave us

38:43

a review. It helps others find out

38:45

about the show. Thanks for listening

39:05

to