0:01

James Neelon is inside a bland,

0:04

beige carpeted boardroom.

0:06

He's sitting at a large round table under

0:08

the dull glare of fluorescent light. In

0:11

his role as the US Ambassador in

0:13

Honduras, he spends a lot of

0:15

time in rooms like this. Today's

0:18

meeting is in Washington, d C. At

0:21

the Council of the America's It's

0:23

a group that promotes free trade and open

0:26

markets. A couple dozen other

0:28

diplomats from Central America and the

0:30

Caribbean sit around the same table.

0:34

It's March, less

0:36

than two weeks after the murder

0:38

of Berte Cassiris. The

0:40

killing is sure to be a topic

0:42

of discussion today, and Kneelan

0:45

knows the case well. He attended

0:47

Berta's funeral and he's met with her

0:49

family, promising them whatever

0:51

support his embassy can provide.

0:54

But before Kneelan can get into

0:56

all of that, the room

0:59

erup perfect

1:04

of a

1:07

gentleman stood up in the middle

1:09

of it, and I think he unfurled a banner and he

1:11

said, you know, pointing at me. He said, this man

1:14

has blood on his hands. And it was in reference

1:16

to the Berta cass Race case. A

1:18

couple of men grabbed the activists

1:21

and began pushing them toward an exit

1:23

door. The protesters

1:25

fight back, One is shoved

1:28

hard into a door frame on

1:30

his way out of the room.

1:42

In Honduras, the U s Embassy

1:44

is a powerful institution. It's

1:47

capable of exerting lots of pressure

1:49

on local authorities, but for

1:51

some that influence wasn't

1:54

always welcome. Barretts

1:56

Or herself had been deeply critical

1:58

of the US and especially it's

2:00

military, ever since her days

2:03

in El Salvador, when she aided leftist

2:05

rebels there in their fight against

2:07

the US backed government. That

2:10

distrust of America's motives

2:13

is shared by many of her friends

2:15

and colleagues in Copaine. For

2:18

decades, America has provided financial

2:21

and tactical support so the military

2:24

and security forces of Honduras.

2:27

The US government has also, through

2:29

business development ventures and aid

2:31

programs, supported private

2:33

development projects like the one

2:35

behind the Ahwa Zarca dam.

2:38

Neeland says he doesn't mind being criticized,

2:41

It's part of the job, but this

2:44

kind of direct accusation that

2:46

he was personally implicated in

2:48

Barton's death struck a

2:51

nerve. I guess I personally

2:53

draw the line when people um accuse

2:56

me of ill intent. You

2:58

know, all I can say is that it

3:01

was always my intention to try and do everything

3:03

I could to bring the resources of the United

3:05

States to bear to help

3:07

Honduras in our mutual interest.

3:10

But in a way, those protesters

3:12

were just amplifying a message Berta

3:15

had been repeating for years.

3:17

She often talked about the negative impact

3:19

of the US, especially the US

3:22

military, on her country.

3:24

The Awazarka damn she opposed was

3:27

one example. Some of the Dessa

3:29

employees she'd clashed with had

3:31

undergone US led military

3:33

training. This is Berta

3:36

in a two thousand thirteen interview.

3:40

This ex military, This

3:42

as chief of security, he's ex military.

3:45

And the guy who identifies himself as the

3:47

head of Dessa you went to West Point and

3:49

was a specialist in military intelligence.

3:52

We're seeing that there is a connection in all

3:54

of these mega projects, both in hydro

3:56

electricity and mining, there's a connection

3:59

to the military militaries.

4:04

But Barta's relationship with America

4:06

was complicated. She didn't

4:09

really view America itself

4:11

as an enemy. She visited

4:13

the country regularly. She had

4:15

family, brothers, sisters, niece's

4:18

nephews who lived there. She

4:20

had forged partnerships with US

4:22

based NGOs, and she had

4:24

even met with several US congress

4:26

members and senators. She

4:29

didn't agree with a lot of what the US

4:31

government did, but she understood

4:34

that sometimes the best way to get

4:36

Honduran politicians to hear you

4:39

was to have people in America helped

4:41

deliver the message.

4:55

I'm monte Reel for Bloomberg Green

4:58

and this is ud River.

5:26

Hidden away in the lower level of the

5:28

Heart Building where U S senators

5:31

have their offices. You walk down

5:33

a cavernous hallway, turn a

5:35

corner and find room one.

5:39

Yellow post it notes with little

5:41

arrows drawn on them are stuck

5:43

on the walls and on the front desk, leading

5:46

you towards someone named Tim

5:49

Are. That's Tim

5:51

Riser. If you're down in this

5:53

corner of the US Capital Complex,

5:56

you're probably looking for him.

5:58

He's the senior foreign policy adviser

6:01

for the Democratic Senator from Vermont,

6:03

Patrick Lahy, and Tim

6:06

is the guy who runs much of the day to day

6:08

business of a very important

6:10

Senate subcommittee, the

6:13

one that decides which countries

6:15

get American aid dollars. The

6:18

second I walk into his office, he

6:21

nods to a poster sized picture

6:23

of Berta's smiling face. It's

6:27

hard to miss. The poster sits

6:29

in the window directly behind

6:31

his desk. It's been here since

6:34

almost the day that Berta Custus

6:36

was killed. Riser

6:38

was among those on Capitol Hill who had

6:40

met Berta after she'd won the Goldman

6:43

Prize. In having

6:45

known her, even the slight

6:48

amount that I did, made it

6:50

all the more sort of

6:52

personal and just a feeling

6:54

that this was something that

6:56

we absolutely had to respond

7:00

to. Members of the Cassarus

7:02

family visited Riser and others

7:04

on Capitol Hill. They spoke

7:06

about the threats Barta had received

7:08

and the false leads that were pursued in the

7:11

early days of the murder probe. What

7:13

we saw was first of all predictable,

7:16

an attempt to cover up the crime. It's

7:18

how the police behave

7:21

in Honduras and countries like that all

7:23

the time, to obscure

7:25

what happened, or to

7:28

frame somebody else, or to pretend

7:31

to be investigating when really nothing

7:33

is happening. Um and we

7:35

saw all of that here. Rice

7:37

Or knew of a very specific way

7:40

to send a message to the Honduran authorities.

7:43

He could withhold the money his subcommittee

7:45

controlled if the Honduran

7:47

security state couldn't protect

7:50

Berta and solve a crime like this, did

7:52

it really deserve tens of

7:55

millions of dollars in US financial

7:57

support? And I think people up

7:59

here saw this as emblematic

8:01

of a much larger problem

8:04

and something that could not be

8:06

allowed to just be swept

8:08

under the rug the way these cases

8:10

so often are. As a result, Senator

8:13

lah He made clear that he was not going to

8:15

allow US

8:17

aid to Honduras, to the government of

8:19

Honduras, particularly to the police and

8:21

the armed forces, to continue, at

8:23

least not the aid which this

8:26

subcommittee provides

8:29

until we saw a

8:31

satisfactory resolution

8:33

of this case. The U s

8:35

Embassy in Honduras also offered

8:38

to assist local police. Honduras

8:40

is a sovereign country in the US can

8:43

just take over an investigation, but

8:45

Ambassador Neelan told Berta's family

8:48

that the embassy would try to help out

8:50

around the margins. The embassy

8:53

assigned a Justice Department officer

8:55

to help the Hondurans with technical aspects

8:58

of the investigation, such as telephone

9:00

data retrieval. It also offered

9:03

the use of the FBI crime Lab for

9:05

analysis of evidence. Barta's

9:08

older brother says the presence of a

9:10

US Justice official comforted

9:13

him. He liked the idea

9:16

that there might be someone keeping an eye

9:18

on the Honduran police as the investigation

9:21

progressed. Today,

9:23

he believes that helped lead to the first

9:25

arrests in the case, the ones

9:28

we detailed in episode three. But

9:31

others in the family were wary

9:33

of US involvement, and they

9:35

remain so to this day.

9:38

They don't necessarily see the US

9:40

embassy and the organizations

9:42

that work closely with its

9:44

allies. Barretta's daughter,

9:47

er Tita Isabelle, said as much

9:50

during a rally on the streets of New York

9:52

weeks after the murder. Little

10:01

is he on with you? She

10:03

repeated her calls for a new

10:05

independent homicide investigation.

10:09

She said the state run investigation

10:11

was fatally flawed and nothing,

10:14

not even the assistance from the US, would

10:16

fix that. As Bertita

10:19

Isabelle addressed people in the streets

10:21

of New York, her colleagues

10:23

were delivering the same message inside

10:25

Honduras. This is from

10:27

a BBC report. The

10:30

sun's beating down onto the tarmac here

10:32

and a crowd of demonstrators, I'd

10:34

say about two hundred people from

10:37

Copeine, the organization that Berta

10:39

cassid Is co founded, are

10:41

assembled here in front of them a

10:43

line of riot place. And what the

10:45

people here are demanding is that there

10:47

is an international commission of inquiry

10:50

that will investigate the murder of

10:52

Berta cassidy Is. They don't trust the hon

10:54

Jurn authorities. The

10:57

Cassara's family and the protesters

10:59

wanted to Human Rights Commission within the

11:01

United Nations to conduct a parallel

11:04

investigation, one that ran

11:06

alongside the Honduran governments.

11:09

There was a precedent for this. Forty

11:13

three students disappeared in Mexico

11:16

and the Commission did set up its own inquiry,

11:19

but this time the Honduran

11:22

government was not interested in more

11:24

help. They didn't want a third

11:26

set of eyes looking into the case.

11:29

The Hondurans said that they did

11:31

not need the Inter American Commission support

11:34

with the investigation because they had the FBI

11:36

support. Roxanna Alfos

11:39

is a professor at UC Berkeley's

11:41

Law School and the co director of

11:43

the International Human Rights Law

11:45

Clinic. She says the Honduran

11:48

government used the us IS limited

11:50

involvement as a cover to

11:52

try to derail a parallel investigation.

11:56

The Cassarus family decided to take

11:58

matters into their own hands. They

12:01

tapped into a network of international human

12:03

rights advocates and identified

12:06

several experts with extensive

12:08

legal and prosecutorial experience.

12:12

The family, with help from several

12:14

Honduran and international NGOs,

12:17

convinced those experts to dig

12:19

into the case. The family

12:22

members decided to move

12:24

forward, and so they

12:26

chose a group of

12:29

five legal experts

12:32

to comprise a team

12:35

to conduct an independent and partial

12:37

investigation, and I

12:39

was asked to be a member of that team. The

12:42

group was called guy PAY. It's

12:45

an acronym and translated from the

12:47

Spanish, it stands for the International

12:50

Advisory Group of Experts. Its

12:52

members included attorneys who prosecuted

12:55

high profile human rights cases

12:57

around the world, cases like the

13:00

war crime tribunals in the former

13:02

Yugoslavia and prosecutions

13:04

of military and paramilitary abuse

13:07

in Colombia. Roxanna

13:10

herself had spent two decades litigating

13:12

cases, mostly in Latin America.

13:15

These included extra judicial killings

13:18

and forced disappearances. At

13:21

first, she was reluctant to get involved

13:23

in this one. She was raising two

13:25

very young kids in California at the

13:27

time, heading to Honduras

13:30

to investigate murder and corruption

13:33

seemed like a recipe for trouble. She

13:36

declined, but then reconsidered.

13:39

She says she felt an obligation to

13:41

help, so in October she

13:45

and the rest of the group got to work.

13:52

So the first thing that we did was, you

13:54

know, begin to compile background

13:56

information. They tried to put

13:58

the crime in the larger context of violence

14:01

against activists in Honduras, and

14:03

specifically against activists

14:05

aligned with Berta's organization Copeine.

14:09

They focused only on a three year

14:11

period from and

14:15

they began compiling a list of instances

14:17

where Dessa the hydro Electric

14:19

company had threatened, harassed,

14:22

or violated the rights of members

14:24

of Copine under checkpoints

14:27

their race. There was just three

14:29

years. We documented a hundred and thirty five

14:32

incidents of violence.

14:34

So that was the first step understand the

14:36

context. The next step was

14:38

to look at them criminal

14:43

investigative file. That

14:45

meant trying to review the evidence that the

14:48

Honduran investigators had so far collected.

14:51

Roxanna's team asked to see all of the

14:53

tens of thousands of pages of the file.

14:56

The Honduran prosecutors resisted

14:59

at first, but soon they

15:01

handed over about three thousand pages

15:03

of it Roxanna and the team studied

15:05

the ballistics reports, the autopsy,

15:09

and the statements that the Honduran investigators

15:11

had collected. The interviewed witnesses,

15:14

people who knew something about

15:17

the context, knew something about the

15:19

day of for the threats

15:22

um and then in

15:26

July of two thousand

15:28

seventeen, after

15:31

months and months of requests, we

15:34

got access to about fifty five gigs

15:36

of telephone data. This

15:39

was mostly data that had been collected

15:41

during the raids we detailed in the last

15:43

episode on May two, when

15:47

police confiscated the phones of four

15:49

suspects and searched Dessa's

15:51

offices. Those

15:54

fifty five gigs of data that the investigators

15:56

got amounted to about forty

15:59

thousand pay ages. Most

16:01

of that was in the form of What's app

16:03

text messages. These

16:06

texts would become the center of

16:08

the case, guilt or

16:10

innocence, imprisonment or

16:12

freedom. Everything seemed

16:15

to rest heavily on those messages,

16:18

and even now, four years after

16:20

the murder, it still does.

16:33

Some of those what's app texts were sent

16:35

as part of a group chat. The

16:38

group, according to its what's App

16:40

heading, was created to discuss

16:42

matters of security at the Ahwa Zarka

16:45

site. It included members

16:47

of dessa's security team in Rio

16:49

Blanco, as well as some of dessa's

16:51

high level executives and board

16:53

members. These individuals

16:56

were so sure of

17:00

impunity that

17:03

they texted back

17:06

and forth and and pretty

17:09

openly regarding their

17:12

plans to neutralize the opposition,

17:14

to eliminate the opposition to the Damn project.

17:18

With thousands of pages of messages

17:20

to wade through, there were a few obvious

17:23

time stamps to check out first. For

17:26

example, the morning after

17:28

Berta was killed, there was quite

17:30

a bit of chatter. Then The members

17:33

of the group seemed to be following the initial

17:35

phases of the investigation closely

17:38

to Roxanna's team. It seemed

17:40

like DESSA was getting frequent updates

17:42

from inside the crime scene. The

17:46

message string from the day after the murder

17:48

includes a text from ADESSA project

17:51

manager who suggested he'd

17:53

been in touch with a local police chief.

17:56

He wrote, I've solicited

17:58

the help of the commission her. He confirms

18:01

his support. He'll inform

18:03

me of details of the murder. He

18:06

also recommended we issue a press release

18:09

to create some distance from these events.

18:12

Then, just hours after Berts's

18:15

body was found Sergio Rodriguez,

18:18

Dessa's head of environmental standards and

18:20

community Relations, received

18:22

a police report on his phone. The

18:26

report included descriptions of Berta's

18:28

wounds and the bloodstains in the

18:30

bedrooms and in the hallway of her house. It

18:33

also identified two suspects, the

18:36

ones that we talked about in episode one. They

18:39

were Berta's ex boyfriend, Oreleano

18:41

Molina or Alto, and also

18:44

Gustavo Castro, the Mexican

18:46

activist who had also been wounded in

18:48

the attack. Sergio

18:51

forwarded the report to the others on the Dessa

18:53

group chat Roxanna says

18:56

telephone data showed that the report

18:58

came directly from police in Santa

19:00

Barbara, the province where the Ahwazarka

19:03

Dam site was located. That

19:06

that information is highly

19:08

confidential. There

19:10

is no reason or

19:13

justification that law

19:16

enforcement should share their preliminary

19:19

conclusions regarding

19:22

a a murder with

19:24

a company, But

19:27

it was completely consistent with

19:29

the relationship that the company had

19:32

established with the police.

19:35

The company treated the police like their private

19:37

army. But the messages

19:39

didn't just show a connection to local

19:42

law enforcement. They also revealed

19:44

that Dessa executives were in

19:46

contact with the Minister of Security

19:48

himself. Adasay

19:50

executive reported on the group chat that

19:53

the Minister had assured the company that

19:56

the murder was being treated as a Leo

19:58

de filed us, or loosely translated,

20:01

a skirt problem, a simple

20:04

crime of passion, nothing more.

20:07

Roxanna's team would trace the WhatsApp

20:10

messages back in time for

20:12

years. Those text messages

20:15

allowed them to sketch a detailed

20:17

narrative, the story of what

20:19

they describe as a long running

20:22

and sinister corporate conspiracy.

20:26

You have a treasure trove of

20:28

evidence in this case because

20:31

the perpetrators were absolutely

20:33

sure they would never be held to account,

20:36

not just for the murder, but for all

20:38

the other crimes that were being committed.

20:46

In November, more

20:49

than a year and a half after the murder,

20:52

Roxanna's team released the results

20:54

of its investigation. The

20:56

group handed its findings over to

20:58

prosecutors. One

21:01

of the key figures in the plot they outlined

21:03

was Dootless Bustillo. He

21:06

was one of the four men arrested in May,

21:09

two months after Berta's murder. He

21:12

was a former lieutenant in the Honduran

21:15

Army, and he'd also spent a couple

21:17

of years as the head of security

21:19

for Dessa in Rio Blanco, Berta

21:23

had known Bustillo well. Even

21:25

though they were on opposite sides of the protests,

21:28

they sometimes exchanged messages. Before

21:32

she died, beart To complained that the

21:34

nature of his messages to her had

21:36

changed from business like exchanges

21:39

to aggressive pestering that amounted

21:42

to sexual harassment. In

21:44

an interview with a Swedish journalists, she

21:47

described it as abuse and called

21:49

Bustillo out by Namestio.

21:54

Even after that public complaint,

21:57

Bustillo continued to send bear to

21:59

message. Is. In one exchange,

22:02

he said, along a couple of pictures he'd found

22:04

of her online, who

22:06

is this? Bear To respond, ha

22:09

ha ha, Like you don't know, he

22:12

replies. A

22:14

few more lines are exchanged. He

22:16

tells her she's very beautiful and

22:19

that many men must find her attractive.

22:22

He writes, I like simple, charismatic

22:25

slender women who are strong and stand

22:27

up for themselves. He says he'd

22:29

love to spend some time with her. He

22:32

sends her a wink emoji. Take

22:35

care, beautiful lady, he writes. Berta

22:38

doesn't respond to that, but the next

22:41

day bust is back at it. Hello,

22:44

good morning, and Bone appetite since

22:46

it's lunchtime. He sends

22:48

a flower emoji again.

22:51

Berta doesn't respond. Another

22:53

day passes another Hello,

22:56

Barta, Isabelle, he says. Barta

22:59

finally writes back, it

23:02

seems you've sold your conscience and

23:04

ideals and you've turned your back

23:06

on the people of Latagra. Latagra

23:11

that's the name of the cluster of homes in Rio

23:13

Blanco where the opposition to

23:16

Dessa is centered. Bear

23:18

to ask Bustillo, are

23:20

you not tired of being the frontman

23:23

for Dessa. Boustillo

23:25

had stopped formally working for Dessa

23:28

a few months before, but in the

23:30

context of these and other messages,

23:32

it's clear he's still involved in the company's

23:35

activities. Bustillo

23:37

replies to Berta, I

23:39

am not a frontman for Dessa,

23:42

nor do I even remember that company.

23:45

He tells Berta she should encourage

23:47

her people to stop being so

23:50

ungrateful. Beart To replies

23:53

that she's pretty sure. Boustillo remembers

23:55

Dessa because he keeps repeating

23:57

the company line. It's

24:00

sad, she said, to see

24:02

the role that you've been relegated to.

24:06

Bustio ends the exchange with

24:08

a long string of ha has

24:19

on November, about

24:23

three and a half months before Barton's

24:25

murder, Bustio sent a

24:28

message to Adessa Executive.

24:31

Roxanna's team did not identify

24:33

him in its report because he

24:35

hadn't been indicted. They called

24:37

him Directivo Trace or

24:40

Executive number three. Bustillo

24:47

wrote to Executive number three, telling

24:50

him complete the fifty

24:52

percent. Prosecutors

24:55

believed this was a request for payment

24:58

and that Bustillo was requesting half

25:00

of what was owed to him. Executive

25:03

Number three responded with a

25:05

time six pm.

25:08

He followed that with another message, Let's

25:11

meet in thirty at Chili's in

25:14

Los Proceres Mall. Bustillo

25:17

seemed confused about exactly when

25:20

they should meet six fifteen

25:23

or in thirty minutes. These

25:25

were two different times when

25:28

he expressed confusion. The

25:30

executive row back, Bustilla,

25:33

get it together. This isn't a party.

25:36

Have everything prepared because it could

25:38

happen at any time in the course of

25:40

the day. Roxanna's team

25:42

believed that this time period November

25:47

was when the murder for Higher scheme was

25:50

first plauded. This

26:01

is based on messages and phone calls

26:04

exchanged between Bustillo the

26:06

Dessay executives. The accused

26:08

gunman and Mariano Diaz.

26:11

Diaz is the military guy whose phone

26:14

was tapped as part of another investigation

26:16

into a drug and kidnapping ring.

26:19

One of the people Diaz had been in regular

26:21

contact with was Henry Hernandez.

26:24

He was one of the accused hitmen. Their

26:27

direct messages to each other seemed to

26:29

reference the exchange of a gun and

26:32

payments and additional men

26:35

who could be hired to carry out quote

26:38

a job from the guy

26:40

pay Investigators reading of the messages,

26:43

it seemed that this job they were talking about

26:46

was supposed to happen in February, about

26:49

one month before Berta was actually

26:52

murdered. So what we think

26:55

happened in early February was

26:57

there is an effort to kill

26:59

that down, a

27:05

failed effort. The

27:07

plan, she says, was for Henry

27:10

Hernandez to travel to La

27:12

Esperanza. There, Mariano

27:15

Diaz was supposed to meet him and

27:17

give him a gun. The

27:19

Guide A members believed the killing

27:21

was planned for February five, but

27:25

Berta's daughters were at the house.

27:29

Henry makes it to Leesperanza. He

27:32

sees that bert isn't

27:34

ever loom and

27:36

he says, I can't do this. That

27:40

next morning, on February six,

27:43

Douglas Bustillo send a message

27:45

to Executive Number three. He

27:48

wrote, mission aborted.

27:50

Yesterday it wasn't possible.

27:53

I will wait for your response. I

27:55

no longer have the logistics in place.

27:58

I am at zero. Yeah, he

28:01

says mission mission

28:04

aborted for

28:08

lack of resources. Executive

28:10

Number three responded to Boustillo

28:13

with this remember

28:18

the scene um

28:22

and then says I

28:24

think he says something like receivers or like I

28:26

got the message. What

28:30

does it remember the scene? It's

28:34

open for interpretation. I think if you look

28:36

at that text in the context of the plan

28:40

and means clean up after yourself, at least

28:42

that's the way I would interpret it.

28:53

After Bustillo was arrested, investigators

28:56

found photos of Berta's house

28:58

in his phone and the day

29:00

before the actual murder. The

29:03

chats suggest he planned to meet

29:05

with Executive Number three hours

29:09

before the murder. The phones that investigators

29:12

believe were used by the accused gunmen

29:15

show them traveling to Laesperanza

29:18

around the same time Douglas

29:20

Bustillo was searching for pictures of

29:22

Berta on his phone, and

29:24

about an hour before Berta Cassarus

29:27

was killed Bustillo was

29:29

in contact with the accused gunmen.

29:33

These phone records and What'sapp messages

29:36

later would be used against those who had been arrested

29:38

up to this point, Sergio

29:40

Rodriguez, Douglas Bustillo,

29:43

Mariano Diaz, and the accused

29:45

gunman. In June, judge

29:49

ordered that those suspects would go to trial.

29:53

A few months later, GUP published

29:55

its report, revealing many of

29:57

these phone intercepts for the first time,

30:00

But the report did not publicly

30:02

reveal one piece of information that

30:05

would soon become critically important.

30:09

Who was Executive

30:11

number three? Way

30:19

back in when violence

30:21

was first breaking out in Rio Blanco.

30:24

Phone records suggests that Executive

30:27

Number three was hard at work behind

30:29

the scenes. Remember

30:31

what happened In July A

30:34

soldier working for Dessa's security

30:36

team shot and killed a coping

30:39

protester. Then the

30:41

same day, young Christian Madrid,

30:44

whose family supported the dam was

30:47

shot and killed in the family cow

30:49

pasture. Violence

30:52

like that was a potential public

30:54

relations disaster for Dessa.

30:57

That same day, the executive sent

31:00

What's App text message to his colleagues.

31:02

It said, pay the reporter

31:05

from h H H

31:08

H is the name of the top cable news

31:10

channel and Honduras. He

31:12

suggested a payment of two thousand olympidas

31:15

or about eighty dollars. The

31:18

Guide Bay investigators knew the

31:20

identity of Executive Number three,

31:23

but they didn't reveal his name and their

31:25

report. They knew that

31:27

before he joined Dessa, he'd

31:30

been a high level military intelligence

31:33

officer, and through the

31:35

phone records they could see

31:37

that he took an interest in Berta.

31:41

Sometimes he reached out to her

31:43

personally, so he's

31:45

using her as a human source of intelligence.

31:48

So he's taking the information she was revealing

31:51

about her movements directly or and

31:53

directly about her movements, her

31:55

concerns, and he was feeding

31:57

that information back to his company, and

32:00

then they were acting on

32:02

that information. I mean, that's a classic

32:05

intelligence cycle. Barrett's

32:08

family also knew exactly

32:10

who Executive number three was. They've

32:13

been hearing his name from Bear

32:16

to herself for years,

32:19

and within a few months all

32:22

of Honduras would know his

32:24

name. It's

32:30

March two, the

32:33

two year anniversary of Bart's

32:36

killing. A white Toyota

32:38

pickup truck pulls up in front of a

32:40

federal building in the city of San

32:42

Pedro de su La. Federal

32:45

agents in black face masks opened

32:48

the back door of the truck. They

32:50

lead a man in handcuffs past

32:52

the cameras and microphones of

32:55

reporters. Police

32:57

in Honduras have arrested David

32:59

kept Dios. He is an executive

33:02

of DASA. Casto is being

33:04

accused of being the mastermind behind

33:06

the assassination of environmental activists

33:09

but Cassera. Most

33:12

of the news reports include very few details

33:14

about David Castillo's life, but

33:17

they hint an interesting past.

33:20

He grew up in Honduras, but was

33:22

educated in the United States at

33:24

the Military Academy at West Point.

33:27

He'd lived in the Washington, d c. Area

33:30

for a couple of years before returning to

33:32

work for the Honduran Armed Forces

33:35

in intelligence and counter intelligence,

33:38

and in before

33:41

he turned thirty years old, Castillo

33:44

was named executive president of

33:46

Dessa, where he was in charge

33:49

of developing the Agua Zarca Dam.

33:52

On the day of his arrest, Berta's

33:55

daughter, Bertita Isabelle, tells

33:57

CNN that the family is relieved

34:00

than an accused intellectual

34:03

author behind her mother's murder

34:05

has finally been identified

34:08

and arrested. Today

34:14

we can begin to believe that we're starting

34:16

to break the bonds of impunity that we're

34:18

behind the murder of my mother Berta

34:20

cases. David Castillo is

34:22

a person that Copin and the family members

34:25

have denounced from the beginning. Dessa

34:31

issued a statement again denying

34:33

involvement in Berta's murder and

34:36

defending Castillo's innocence, but

34:39

Castillo himself has never

34:41

told his full story publicly.

34:44

He spent the last two years in prison

34:47

awaiting trial. During

34:49

that time, he's remained something

34:51

of a mystery, the accused

34:54

mastermind of a brazen murder, waiting

34:56

to make his case. I

35:00

did not order this, I did not

35:02

participate it in the murder of Bertas

35:05

there is no evidence whatsoever

35:09

that could link me to

35:13

killing Alberta. On

35:16

the next episode of Blood River, we

35:19

may be accused mastermind.

35:34

Blood River is written and reported by

35:36

me Monte reel sofra

35:38

Forehas is our senior producer. My

35:41

Aquava is our associate producer.

35:44

Our theme was composed and performed

35:46

by Senior Rubinos Special

35:49

thanks to Carlos Rodriguez. Francesco

35:52

Levi is the head of the Berg Podcasts.

35:55

Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already, and

35:58

if you like our show, please leave us a review.

36:01

Thanks for listening,