WEBVTT - Part 4: 'A Treasure Trove' 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:06.280 James Neelon is inside a bland, beige carpeted boardroom. He's 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:09.440 sitting at a large round table under the dull glare 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.480 of fluorescent light. In his role as the US Ambassador 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.840 in Honduras, he spends a lot of time in rooms 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.440 like this. Today's meeting is in Washington, d C. At 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.840 the Council of the America's It's a group that promotes 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:29.040 free trade and open markets. A couple dozen other diplomats 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.760 from Central America and the Caribbean sit around the same table. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.720 It's March, less than two weeks after the murder of 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.760 Berte Cassiris. The killing is sure to be a topic 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.760 of discussion today, and Kneelan knows the case well. He 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.840 attended Berta's funeral and he's met with her family, promising 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:56.000 them whatever support his embassy can provide. But before Kneelan 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:02.160 can get into all of that, the room erup perfect 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:10.000 of a gentleman stood up in the middle of it, 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.240 and I think he unfurled a banner and he said, 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:14.319 you know, pointing at me. He said, this man has 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.280 blood on his hands. And it was in reference to 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.959 the Berta cass Race case. A couple of men grabbed 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.760 the activists and began pushing them toward an exit door. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.120 The protesters fight back, One is shoved hard into a 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:43.199 door frame on his way out of the room. In Honduras, 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.440 the U s Embassy is a powerful institution. It's capable 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.520 of exerting lots of pressure on local authorities, but for 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:57.160 some that influence wasn't always welcome. Barretts Or herself had 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.880 been deeply critical of the US and especially it's military, 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.960 ever since her days in El Salvador, when she aided 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.519 leftist rebels there in their fight against the US backed government. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.920 That distrust of America's motives is shared by many of 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.400 her friends and colleagues in Copaine. For decades, America has 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:25.000 provided financial and tactical support so the military and security 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.720 forces of Honduras. The US government has also, through business 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:35.480 development ventures and aid programs, supported private development projects like 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.400 the one behind the Ahwa Zarca dam. Neeland says he 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.560 doesn't mind being criticized, It's part of the job, but 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.480 this kind of direct accusation that he was personally implicated 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:53.239 in Barton's death struck a nerve. I guess I personally 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.960 draw the line when people um accuse me of ill intent. 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.160 You know, all I can say is that it was 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.480 always my intention to try and do everything I could 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.880 to bring the resources of the United States to bear 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.880 to help Honduras in our mutual interest. But in a way, 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.320 those protesters were just amplifying a message Berta had been 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.720 repeating for years. She often talked about the negative impact 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:24.679 of the US, especially the US military, on her country. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.920 The Awazarka damn she opposed was one example. Some of 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.040 the Dessa employees she'd clashed with had undergone US led 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:38.200 military training. This is Berta in a two thousand thirteen interview. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:45.000 This ex military, This as chief of security, he's ex military. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.600 And the guy who identifies himself as the head of 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:50.480 Dessa you went to West Point and was a specialist 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.160 in military intelligence. We're seeing that there is a connection 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.600 in all of these mega projects, both in hydro electricity 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:04.600 and mining, there's a connection to the military militaries. But 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.760 Barta's relationship with America was complicated. She didn't really view 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:14.480 America itself as an enemy. She visited the country regularly. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.839 She had family, brothers, sisters, niece's nephews who lived there. 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.760 She had forged partnerships with US based NGOs, and she 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.280 had even met with several US congress members and senators. 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.559 She didn't agree with a lot of what the US 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.320 government did, but she understood that sometimes the best way 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.880 to get Honduran politicians to hear you was to have 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:56.400 people in America helped deliver the message. I'm monte Reel 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:27.440 for Bloomberg Green and this is ud River. Hidden away 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.560 in the lower level of the Heart Building where U 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.760 S senators have their offices. You walk down a cavernous hallway, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:40.279 turn a corner and find room one. Yellow post it 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.880 notes with little arrows drawn on them are stuck on 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.040 the walls and on the front desk, leading you towards 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:53.279 someone named Tim Are. That's Tim Riser. If you're down 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.080 in this corner of the US Capital Complex, you're probably 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.479 looking for him. He's the senior foreign policy adviser for 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:06.040 the Democratic Senator from Vermont, Patrick Lahy, and Tim is 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.080 the guy who runs much of the day to day 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:13.760 business of a very important Senate subcommittee, the one that 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:19.560 decides which countries get American aid dollars. The second I 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:23.080 walk into his office, he nods to a poster sized 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:28.680 picture of Berta's smiling face. It's hard to miss. The 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:33.279 poster sits in the window directly behind his desk. It's 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.000 been here since almost the day that Berta Custus was killed. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.000 Riser was among those on Capitol Hill who had met 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:46.440 Berta after she'd won the Goldman Prize. In having known her, 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.400 even the slight amount that I did, made it all 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:54.880 the more sort of personal and just a feeling that 0:06:55.720 --> 0:07:00.040 this was something that we absolutely had to respond to. 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.520 Members of the Cassarus family visited Riser and others on 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.680 Capitol Hill. They spoke about the threats Barta had received 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.400 and the false leads that were pursued in the early 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.040 days of the murder probe. What we saw was first 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.120 of all predictable, an attempt to cover up the crime. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.720 It's how the police behave in Honduras and countries like 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:28.280 that all the time, to obscure what happened, or to 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.920 frame somebody else, or to pretend to be investigating when 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.200 really nothing is happening. Um and we saw all of 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.200 that here. Rice Or knew of a very specific way 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.760 to send a message to the Honduran authorities. He could 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.520 withhold the money his subcommittee controlled if the Honduran security 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.960 state couldn't protect Berta and solve a crime like this, 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.240 did it really deserve tens of millions of dollars in 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.000 US financial support? And I think people up here saw 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:05.320 this as emblematic of a much larger problem and something 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.760 that could not be allowed to just be swept under 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.160 the rug the way these cases so often are. As 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.720 a result, Senator lah He made clear that he was 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:19.200 not going to allow US aid to Honduras, to the 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.640 government of Honduras, particularly to the police and the armed forces, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:27.160 to continue, at least not the aid which this subcommittee 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:34.400 provides until we saw a satisfactory resolution of this case. 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.559 The U s Embassy in Honduras also offered to assist 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.680 local police. Honduras is a sovereign country in the US 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:47.040 can just take over an investigation, but Ambassador Neelan told 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.480 Berta's family that the embassy would try to help out 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:55.120 around the margins. The embassy assigned a Justice Department officer 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.080 to help the Hondurans with technical aspects of the investigation, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.520 such as telephone data retrieval. It also offered the use 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:08.679 of the FBI crime Lab for analysis of evidence. Barta's 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.320 older brother says the presence of a US Justice official 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.839 comforted him. He liked the idea that there might be 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.040 someone keeping an eye on the Honduran police as the 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:25.400 investigation progressed. Today, he believes that helped lead to the 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.719 first arrests in the case, the ones we detailed in 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.920 episode three. But others in the family were wary of 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.520 US involvement, and they remain so to this day. They 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.720 don't necessarily see the US embassy and the organizations that 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:48.640 work closely with its allies. Barretta's daughter, er Tita Isabelle, 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:51.560 said as much during a rally on the streets of 0:09:51.559 --> 0:10:01.439 New York weeks after the murder. Little is he on 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:06.559 with you? She repeated her calls for a new independent 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:12.040 homicide investigation. She said the state run investigation was fatally 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.960 flawed and nothing, not even the assistance from the US, 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:20.920 would fix that. As Bertita Isabelle addressed people in the 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.559 streets of New York, her colleagues were delivering the same 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:29.960 message inside Honduras. This is from a BBC report. The 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.600 sun's beating down onto the tarmac here and a crowd 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:37.559 of demonstrators, I'd say about two hundred people from Copeine, 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:42.160 the organization that Berta cassid Is co founded, are assembled 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.760 here in front of them a line of riot place. 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.840 And what the people here are demanding is that there 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.920 is an international commission of inquiry that will investigate the 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.760 murder of Berta cassidy Is. They don't trust the hon 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.920 Jurn authorities. The Cassara's family and the protesters wanted to 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.480 Human Rights Commission within the United Nations to conduct a 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:09.760 parallel investigation, one that ran alongside the Honduran governments. There 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:15.720 was a precedent for this. Forty three students disappeared in 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.839 Mexico and the Commission did set up its own inquiry, 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.000 but this time the Honduran government was not interested in 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.200 more help. They didn't want a third set of eyes 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.880 looking into the case. The Hondurans said that they did 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.000 not need the Inter American Commission support with the investigation 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.360 because they had the FBI support. Roxanna Alfos is a 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.200 professor at UC Berkeley's Law School and the co director 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.679 of the International Human Rights Law Clinic. She says the 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.840 Honduran government used the us IS limited involvement as a 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:57.359 cover to try to derail a parallel investigation. The Cassarus 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.480 family decided to take matters into their own hands. They 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.280 tapped into a network of international human rights advocates and 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:12.559 identified several experts with extensive legal and prosecutorial experience. The family, 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:18.000 with help from several Honduran and international NGOs, convinced those 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:23.439 experts to dig into the case. The family members decided 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:29.160 to move forward, and so they chose a group of 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:35.880 five legal experts to comprise a team to conduct an 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.000 independent and partial investigation, and I was asked to be 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.400 a member of that team. The group was called guy PAY. 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.360 It's an acronym and translated from the Spanish, it stands 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.600 for the International Advisory Group of Experts. Its members included 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.600 attorneys who prosecuted high profile human rights cases around the world, 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:02.959 cases like the war crime tribunals in the former Yugoslavia 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:10.240 and prosecutions of military and paramilitary abuse in Colombia. Roxanna 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:15.080 herself had spent two decades litigating cases, mostly in Latin America. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:21.240 These included extra judicial killings and forced disappearances. At first, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.400 she was reluctant to get involved in this one. She 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.920 was raising two very young kids in California at the time, 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:33.920 heading to Honduras to investigate murder and corruption seemed like 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:39.719 a recipe for trouble. She declined, but then reconsidered. She 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.600 says she felt an obligation to help, so in October 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.480 she and the rest of the group got to work. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.160 So the first thing that we did was, you know, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:58.760 begin to compile background information. They tried to put the 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.920 crime in the larger context of violence against activists in Honduras, 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:09.400 and specifically against activists aligned with Berta's organization Copeine. They 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:15.480 focused only on a three year period from and they 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.240 began compiling a list of instances where Dessa the hydro 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:24.400 Electric company had threatened, harassed, or violated the rights of 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:29.120 members of Copine under checkpoints their race. There was just 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.680 three years. We documented a hundred and thirty five incidents 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.280 of violence. So that was the first step understand the context. 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:44.640 The next step was to look at them criminal investigative file. 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.520 That meant trying to review the evidence that the Honduran 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.960 investigators had so far collected. Roxanna's team asked to see 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.120 all of the tens of thousands of pages of the file. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.440 The Honduran prosecutors resisted at first, but soon they handed 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.000 over about three thousand pages of it Roxanna and the 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:09.960 team studied the ballistics reports, the autopsy, and the statements 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.520 that the Honduran investigators had collected. The interviewed witnesses, people 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:19.280 who knew something about the context, knew something about the 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:26.600 day of for the threats um and then in July 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:33.479 of two thousand seventeen, after months and months of requests, 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.800 we got access to about fifty five gigs of telephone data. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.600 This was mostly data that had been collected during the 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.040 raids we detailed in the last episode on May two, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.200 when police confiscated the phones of four suspects and searched 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.960 Dessa's offices. Those fifty five gigs of data that the 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:01.360 investigators got amounted to about forty thousand pay ages. Most 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.560 of that was in the form of What's app text messages. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:10.040 These texts would become the center of the case, guilt 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:16.280 or innocence, imprisonment or freedom. Everything seemed to rest heavily 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.920 on those messages, and even now, four years after the murder, 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:35.520 it still does. Some of those what's app texts were 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.320 sent as part of a group chat. The group, according 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.960 to its what's App heading, was created to discuss matters 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.080 of security at the Ahwa Zarka site. It included members 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.760 of dessa's security team in Rio Blanco, as well as 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.880 some of dessa's high level executives and board members. These 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:06.600 individuals were so sure of impunity that they texted back 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:12.879 and forth and and pretty openly regarding their plans to 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:17.240 neutralize the opposition, to eliminate the opposition to the Damn project. 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.239 With thousands of pages of messages to wade through, there 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.439 were a few obvious time stamps to check out first. 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.200 For example, the morning after Berta was killed, there was 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.119 quite a bit of chatter. Then The members of the 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.879 group seemed to be following the initial phases of the 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:41.080 investigation closely to Roxanna's team. It seemed like DESSA was 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:46.560 getting frequent updates from inside the crime scene. The message 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.760 string from the day after the murder includes a text 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.960 from ADESSA project manager who suggested he'd been in touch 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.879 with a local police chief. He wrote, I've solicited the 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.240 help of the commission her. He confirms his support. He'll 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.240 inform me of details of the murder. He also recommended 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.760 we issue a press release to create some distance from 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:16.000 these events. Then, just hours after Berts's body was found 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:21.560 Sergio Rodriguez, Dessa's head of environmental standards and community Relations, 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:27.280 received a police report on his phone. The report included 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.480 descriptions of Berta's wounds and the bloodstains in the bedrooms 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.639 and in the hallway of her house. It also identified 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:38.280 two suspects, the ones that we talked about in episode one. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.639 They were Berta's ex boyfriend, Oreleano Molina or Alto, and 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.840 also Gustavo Castro, the Mexican activist who had also been 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.680 wounded in the attack. Sergio forwarded the report to the 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.080 others on the Dessa group chat Roxanna says telephone data 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.280 showed that the report came directly from police in Santa Barbara, 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:06.080 the province where the Ahwazarka Dam site was located. That 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:12.879 that information is highly confidential. There is no reason or 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:22.040 justification that law enforcement should share their preliminary conclusions regarding 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:28.240 a a murder with a company, But it was completely 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:33.600 consistent with the relationship that the company had established with 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:37.880 the police. The company treated the police like their private army. 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:42.040 But the messages didn't just show a connection to local 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.560 law enforcement. They also revealed that Dessa executives were in 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:51.920 contact with the Minister of Security himself. Adasay executive reported 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.879 on the group chat that the Minister had assured the 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.720 company that the murder was being treated as a Leo 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.680 de filed us, or loosely translated, a skirt problem, a 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:09.119 simple crime of passion, nothing more. Roxanna's team would trace 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:14.160 the WhatsApp messages back in time for years. Those text 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:19.080 messages allowed them to sketch a detailed narrative, the story 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.080 of what they describe as a long running and sinister 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:29.600 corporate conspiracy. You have a treasure trove of evidence in 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.480 this case because the perpetrators were absolutely sure they would 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.440 never be held to account, not just for the murder, 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.800 but for all the other crimes that were being committed. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:51.119 In November, more than a year and a half after 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:55.640 the murder, Roxanna's team released the results of its investigation. 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:01.159 The group handed its findings over to prosecutors. One of 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.080 the key figures in the plot they outlined was Dootless Bustillo. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.480 He was one of the four men arrested in May, 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.959 two months after Berta's murder. He was a former lieutenant 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:17.200 in the Honduran Army, and he'd also spent a couple 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.639 of years as the head of security for Dessa in 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:26.240 Rio Blanco, Berta had known Bustillo well. Even though they 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.760 were on opposite sides of the protests, they sometimes exchanged messages. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.720 Before she died, beart To complained that the nature of 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:39.240 his messages to her had changed from business like exchanges 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.479 to aggressive pestering that amounted to sexual harassment. In an 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:48.280 interview with a Swedish journalists, she described it as abuse 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:56.919 and called Bustillo out by Namestio. Even after that public complaint, 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.720 Bustillo continued to send bear to message. Is. In one exchange, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:04.560 he said, along a couple of pictures he'd found of 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:09.920 her online, who is this? Bear To respond, ha ha ha, 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.960 Like you don't know, he replies. A few more lines 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.119 are exchanged. He tells her she's very beautiful and that 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.960 many men must find her attractive. He writes, I like simple, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.040 charismatic slender women who are strong and stand up for themselves. 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.280 He says he'd love to spend some time with her. 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:36.400 He sends her a wink emoji. Take care, beautiful lady, 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:41.160 he writes. Berta doesn't respond to that, but the next 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.119 day bust is back at it. Hello, good morning, and 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:50.639 Bone appetite since it's lunchtime. He sends a flower emoji again. 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:57.520 Berta doesn't respond. Another day passes another Hello, Barta, Isabelle, 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:03.119 he says. Barta finally writes back, it seems you've sold 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.840 your conscience and ideals and you've turned your back on 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:12.520 the people of Latagra. Latagra that's the name of the 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:16.000 cluster of homes in Rio Blanco where the opposition to 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:20.960 Dessa is centered. Bear to ask Bustillo, are you not 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:26.160 tired of being the frontman for Dessa. Boustillo had stopped 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.879 formally working for Dessa a few months before, but in 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.720 the context of these and other messages, it's clear he's 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:38.680 still involved in the company's activities. Bustillo replies to Berta, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.879 I am not a frontman for Dessa, nor do I 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:47.440 even remember that company. He tells Berta she should encourage 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:52.920 her people to stop being so ungrateful. Beart To replies 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:57.280 that she's pretty sure. Boustillo remembers Dessa because he keeps 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:02.560 repeating the company line. It's sad, she said, to see 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.200 the role that you've been relegated to. Bustio ends the 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:20.160 exchange with a long string of ha has on November, 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:27.320 about three and a half months before Barton's murder, Bustio 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:32.359 sent a message to Adessa Executive. Roxanna's team did not 0:24:32.640 --> 0:24:36.560 identify him in its report because he hadn't been indicted. 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:47.639 They called him Directivo Trace or Executive number three. Bustillo 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:53.040 wrote to Executive number three, telling him complete the fifty percent. 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:58.440 Prosecutors believed this was a request for payment and that 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:01.920 Bustillo was requesting half of what was owed to him. 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:08.960 Executive Number three responded with a time six pm. He 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:13.119 followed that with another message, Let's meet in thirty at 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:19.680 Chili's in Los Proceres Mall. Bustillo seemed confused about exactly 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:24.439 when they should meet six fifteen or in thirty minutes. 0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:30.159 These were two different times when he expressed confusion. The 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:35.520 executive row back, Bustilla, get it together. This isn't a party. 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:39.680 Have everything prepared because it could happen at any time 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:43.320 in the course of the day. Roxanna's team believed that 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:48.760 this time period November was when the murder for Higher 0:25:48.920 --> 0:26:03.080 scheme was first plauded. This is based on messages and 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:08.560 phone calls exchanged between Bustillo the Dessay executives. The accused 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:13.680 gunman and Mariano Diaz. Diaz is the military guy whose 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:16.680 phone was tapped as part of another investigation into a 0:26:16.800 --> 0:26:20.679 drug and kidnapping ring. One of the people Diaz had 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:24.960 been in regular contact with was Henry Hernandez. He was 0:26:25.040 --> 0:26:29.040 one of the accused hitmen. Their direct messages to each 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:32.359 other seemed to reference the exchange of a gun and 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:36.639 payments and additional men who could be hired to carry 0:26:36.680 --> 0:26:41.960 out quote a job from the guy pay Investigators reading 0:26:42.000 --> 0:26:45.159 of the messages, it seemed that this job they were 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:50.160 talking about was supposed to happen in February, about one 0:26:50.280 --> 0:26:55.040 month before Berta was actually murdered. So what we think 0:26:55.080 --> 0:26:58.520 happened in early February was there is an effort to 0:26:59.560 --> 0:27:08.600 kill that down, a failed effort. The plan, she says, 0:27:09.320 --> 0:27:13.840 was for Henry Hernandez to travel to La Esperanza. There, 0:27:14.560 --> 0:27:17.919 Mariano Diaz was supposed to meet him and give him 0:27:17.960 --> 0:27:22.000 a gun. The Guide A members believed the killing was 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:27.920 planned for February five, but Berta's daughters were at the house. 0:27:29.440 --> 0:27:34.360 Henry makes it to Leesperanza. He sees that bert isn't 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:39.920 ever loom and he says, I can't do this. That 0:27:40.200 --> 0:27:45.520 next morning, on February six, Douglas Bustillo send a message 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:51.639 to Executive Number three. He wrote, mission aborted. Yesterday it 0:27:51.880 --> 0:27:55.639 wasn't possible. I will wait for your response. I no 0:27:55.800 --> 0:28:00.359 longer have the logistics in place. I am at zero. Yeah, 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:10.560 he says mission mission aborted for lack of resources. Executive 0:28:10.680 --> 0:28:19.800 Number three responded to Boustillo with this remember the scene 0:28:21.000 --> 0:28:25.600 um and then says I think he says something like 0:28:25.720 --> 0:28:30.359 receivers or like I got the message. What does it 0:28:30.440 --> 0:28:36.439 remember the scene? It's open for interpretation. I think if 0:28:36.480 --> 0:28:38.520 you look at that text in the context of the 0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:42.480 plan and means clean up after yourself, at least that's 0:28:42.480 --> 0:28:54.720 the way I would interpret it. After Bustillo was arrested, 0:28:55.280 --> 0:29:00.240 investigators found photos of Berta's house in his phone and 0:29:00.360 --> 0:29:04.560 the day before the actual murder. The chats suggest he 0:29:04.760 --> 0:29:09.960 planned to meet with Executive Number three hours before the murder. 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:14.080 The phones that investigators believe were used by the accused 0:29:14.200 --> 0:29:19.280 gunmen show them traveling to Laesperanza around the same time 0:29:19.920 --> 0:29:23.840 Douglas Bustillo was searching for pictures of Berta on his phone, 0:29:24.680 --> 0:29:29.160 and about an hour before Berta Cassarus was killed Bustillo 0:29:29.480 --> 0:29:34.400 was in contact with the accused gunmen. These phone records 0:29:34.480 --> 0:29:37.640 and What'sapp messages later would be used against those who 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:42.800 had been arrested up to this point, Sergio Rodriguez, Douglas Bustillo, 0:29:43.320 --> 0:29:49.640 Mariano Diaz, and the accused gunman. In June, judge ordered 0:29:49.680 --> 0:29:54.040 that those suspects would go to trial. A few months later, 0:29:54.520 --> 0:29:58.840 GUP published its report, revealing many of these phone intercepts 0:29:59.000 --> 0:30:02.760 for the first time, But the report did not publicly 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:07.920 reveal one piece of information that would soon become critically important. 0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:21.720 Who was Executive number three? Way back in when violence 0:30:21.840 --> 0:30:25.960 was first breaking out in Rio Blanco. Phone records suggests 0:30:26.040 --> 0:30:30.120 that Executive Number three was hard at work behind the scenes. 0:30:31.280 --> 0:30:36.040 Remember what happened In July A soldier working for Dessa's 0:30:36.120 --> 0:30:41.600 security team shot and killed a coping protester. Then the 0:30:41.720 --> 0:30:46.200 same day, young Christian Madrid, whose family supported the dam 0:30:46.920 --> 0:30:52.440 was shot and killed in the family cow pasture. Violence 0:30:52.560 --> 0:30:56.880 like that was a potential public relations disaster for Dessa. 0:30:57.640 --> 0:31:01.320 That same day, the executive sent What's App text message 0:31:01.400 --> 0:31:05.640 to his colleagues. It said, pay the reporter from h 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:10.000 H H H is the name of the top cable 0:31:10.080 --> 0:31:13.960 news channel and Honduras. He suggested a payment of two 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:19.800 thousand olympidas or about eighty dollars. The Guide Bay investigators 0:31:20.120 --> 0:31:24.240 knew the identity of Executive Number three, but they didn't 0:31:24.320 --> 0:31:28.160 reveal his name and their report. They knew that before 0:31:28.320 --> 0:31:33.760 he joined Dessa, he'd been a high level military intelligence officer, 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:37.840 and through the phone records they could see that he 0:31:38.000 --> 0:31:42.960 took an interest in Berta. Sometimes he reached out to 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:47.040 her personally, so he's using her as a human source 0:31:47.480 --> 0:31:50.960 of intelligence. So he's taking the information she was revealing 0:31:51.000 --> 0:31:54.600 about her movements directly or and directly about her movements, 0:31:54.960 --> 0:31:58.560 her concerns, and he was feeding that information back to 0:31:58.680 --> 0:32:03.160 his company, and then they were acting on that information. 0:32:03.240 --> 0:32:09.200 I mean, that's a classic intelligence cycle. Barrett's family also 0:32:09.360 --> 0:32:14.320 knew exactly who Executive number three was. They've been hearing 0:32:14.480 --> 0:32:20.040 his name from Bear to herself for years, and within 0:32:20.160 --> 0:32:24.800 a few months all of Honduras would know his name. 0:32:30.400 --> 0:32:36.360 It's March two, the two year anniversary of Bart's killing. 0:32:37.280 --> 0:32:40.400 A white Toyota pickup truck pulls up in front of 0:32:40.440 --> 0:32:43.280 a federal building in the city of San Pedro de 0:32:43.480 --> 0:32:48.400 su La. Federal agents in black face masks opened the 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.240 back door of the truck. They lead a man in 0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:57.440