WEBVTT - Part 8: The Trial 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:05.360 Hi podcast listeners. A previous version of this episode misidentified 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.559 the voices of David Castillo and Hacobo Atala when describing 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:14.240 a recorded telephone exchange between them. That mistake has been corrected. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:25.680 Thanks for listening. Yes, this is a cell phone call 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.840 that was intercepted on May two. There are two men 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:35.560 on this call. One is Hacobo Tala. He's a member 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:40.040 of the Itala Zablas, a well known business family in Honduras. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.280 The other person on the line is David Castillo. You'll 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.440 recall that David is the CEO of Dessa. Dessa is 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.320 the hydro electric company that was planning to build a 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:58.680 damn in western Honduras, but then it ran into protests 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.680 from environmental activist Berta Cassarras. At the time of this 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:07.920 call between David and Jacobo, it has been two months 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:17.040 since Berta was assassinated in her home Acum On this morning, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:22.760 David tells Jacobo he has Unamala Noticia, some bad news. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.920 Police have raided the offices of Dessa, and that can 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:33.720 only mean one thing that investigators suspect Dessa had something 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:38.240 to do with Berta's murder. The police also have arrested 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.720 one of the company's employees, a manager who had worked 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:48.560 on the Damn project. The two men seemed stunned and 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:57.880 it can't be, Jacobo SAIDs impossible. This call marks the 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:03.000 moment when David Castillo's life changes dramatically, when he and 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.960 his colleagues realize that their company is at the center 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.480 of the murder investigation. It marks the start of a 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:14.400 journey that ends with David in a courtroom facing charges 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:24.040 that he planned Berta's murder non nos m h. In 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.359 the five plus years since Berta's death, lots of people 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.320 in Honduras and around the world have urged the country 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.840 to bring her killers to justice. Seven people have already 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.680 been sentenced for their roles in the killing. These included 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.079 the hitman who pulled the trigger to Kilberta, as well 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.240 as a few middlemen who helped plan the logistics. But 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.120 to the Cassar's family and their supporters, that wasn't enough. 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.520 Punishing low level triggerment is one thing. Going after the 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.680 powerful accused of paying them to kill is another, and 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.960 that kind of accountability is extremely rare in Honduras. This trial, 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.440 in the eyes of many in the international human rights community, 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:18.160 is a test of the country itself. When you last 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.959 heard from us, David was preparing for his day in court. 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:31.200 Now that moment has come, David says he's innocent, that 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:36.240 he and Berta were friends. The prosecution says they'll prove 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.880 he was a manipulative killer. Over the next two episodes, 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.840 we'll walk you through key moments in the trial of 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.480 David Castillo, from the opening statements all the way to 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:57.440 the final verdict. I'm monte Reel and this is blood River. 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.320 It has taken a long time for David's case to 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:28.640 make it to court. Exactly two years after Barton's murder 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:33.560 in David was detained as a suspect. He was kept 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.560 in a prison to await trial, but then the case 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.880 got stuck. Nothing happened, and under Honduran law, if a 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.240 suspect is held for two and a half years with 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:48.640 no trial, the suspect goes free. In August of the 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.599 Honduran courts ruled that David would at last face his accusers. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.440 Arts eighty eight year old mother broke down in tears 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:02.680 at the news as he that would change. Consumedly, she 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.279 said it was a tireless fight against the most powerful 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.760 economic forces in Honduras. To her, it felt like the 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.560 last five years, all the demonstrations and the protests demanding 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:20.200 justice for her daughter, we're paying off. At that time, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:25.000 the trial seemed imminent. The prosecutors believed it would be 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:29.560 scheduled in a few weeks. That's where our previous episode 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:34.640 left off. But right after that, David's defense team begins 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.880 filing numerous appeals. Each one gets kicked to a higher 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.960 court to be resolved. That takes months. Summer turns to fault. 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:51.039 At the same time, the pandemic is wreaking havoc in Honduras. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.839 Judges and other court officials are getting sick. The court 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:02.280 system is jammed with cases. Fault turns to winter. In 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:06.200 January of this year, a long deferred evidence hearing is 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:11.359 called to order. The hearing commences, David's lawyers register a 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.719 new appeal. The appeal has to go to a higher court, 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.320 and the higher court shoots it down. This happens week 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.080 after week. The hearing is called to order and then 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:28.000 suspended no fewer than eleven times in the first months 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:34.960 of David's lawyers say this is just due diligence. They 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.760 say the appeals are against a legal system that's stacked 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.880 against him. The trial has been assigned to the same 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.560 branch of the federal courts that already had convicted one 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:50.400 of David's employees for his role in the murder. The 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.960 defense believes the case should be moved to another branch. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:07:08.880 Their appeals are dismissed one after another. David himself has 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.760 always insisted he wants this case to go to trial. 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.960 He says he had nothing to do with this murder, 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.920 and he wants to clear his name and regain control 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:25.160 of his life. This has been terrible, horrible if I've 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:32.040 lost everything, everything. Nine months after it was decided David's 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:36.000 case would be tried, the judges scheduled the actual date. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:49.960 They reserve a courtroom for April six. That's the sound 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.240 of a microphone test inside a federal courtroom in Tegucigalpa, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.600 the capital of Honduras. Three judges take their places at 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.760 the bat h They look out upon a small room. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.760 Teams of prosecutors lying one side of the chamber. The 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.680 defense attorneys face them from the opposite side. In the 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.440 middle of the floor. Between them is the wood paneled 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:20.040 witness box. A rotating cast will take turns inside that 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:25.960 box they'll include police investigators, colleagues of Berta and colleagues 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:31.080 of David. Technical analysts will summarize tens of thousands of 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:35.360 pages of telephone records for the judges. The courtroom has 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.120 been reserved for three weeks, enough time the judges think 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.679 to work through all the evidence and hear all the arguments. 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.720 But just like everything else in this case, the trial 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.800 does not finish on schedule. It doesn't end in late 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:56.600 April or May or June. That's because there's a lot 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:01.040 of new evidence. Well here secretly recorded phone calls and 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.320 read previously unreleased text messages. We'll have a clearer view 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.760 than we've ever had of the events that led up 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.520 to the murder. It'll all be laid out before the judges, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.560 and after five years, a case that has been watched 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.880 and argued about all over the world will finally be closed. 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.360 Before we sort out that evidence, I need to explain 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.400 how a trial like this works in Honduras. It's a 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.320 little different than the kind you might be familiar with. 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.679 First of all, it's not a jury trial. The three 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.600 judge panel, here's the evidence, and they're the ones to 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.360 decide if David is guilty or not. David is represented 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:56.520 by his defense attorneys and the case against him is 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:02.880 argued by prosecutors. But there are multiple teams of prosecutors. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.439 First you have the state. These are the federal prosecutors 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.319 from the Honduran Public Ministry, roughly equivalent to the Justice 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.360 Department in the United States. But next to them, at 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.920 separate tables set the private prosecutors. These attorneys represent not 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.520 the state but the surviving victims of the crime, Berta's 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:31.280 family members. In other words, they'll argue their own cases 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:36.560 independent of the federal prosecutors. They'll call their own witnesses 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.360 to the stand and present their own evidence. They'll take 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.760 part in questioning and cross examination of all the witnesses, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:50.360 separate from the public prosecutors. At first blush, this might 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.480 sound a little like the system in the United States, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.320 where the state directs a criminal trial and the families 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.160 of victims can bring separate civil suits to court. But 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.800 that's not what this is. The judges in this case 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.640 won't issue two verdicts, one for the public prosecutors and 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.400 another for the private team. They'll only be one verdict. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.240 It's just that the state and the private prosecutors will 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.360 have a voice in the courtroom. Joseph Barra is a 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.880 law professor at u c l A, specializing in human 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:29.760 rights law. He's part of an international observer mission monitoring 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:34.200 the trial. He says that the private prosecutors might be 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:39.319 thought of as a sort of legal insurance policy against corruption. 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.920 Imagine a case where a public prosecutor might be paid 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:48.640 off or influenced by a wealthy, well connected defendant. A 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:53.160 team of private prosecutors might help counter the possibility of 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:58.480 a fixed trial. Ideally, their interests should in some ways 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.480 merge with the public interests in getting to the root 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:07.000 of the crime, finding the truth, and achieving justice. And 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.440 they have a specific kind of moral high ground in 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.720 wanting to achieve that justice because they are the ones 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.920 who have been victimized by the crime. Trials like this 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.680 are required to be open to the public according to 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.440 Honduran law, but the law didn't foresee the outbreak of 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.880 a global pandemic. The judges ruled that only the separate 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.360 teams of attorneys, as well as one member from Barton's 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.240 family and one from David's could watch from inside the 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.319 courtroom to satisfy the requirement that the trial be public. 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:45.760 The judges made it available via live stream. The audio 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.560 isn't the best quality. At times it sounds completely distorted. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.800 The camera doesn't show the judges. More often than not 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.880 it's pointed at the backs of the public prosecutors, so 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.120 it's not that great at capturing whatever visual drama might unfold. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.800 But when you call up the video, there's a column 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.720 where observers can type in comments in real time, and 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.560 instantly David's family members and sympathizers start to get into 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:25.559 sparring matches with Barreta's side. As the trial gets underway, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:30.920 someone using an account linked to Copeene Bart's organization types 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.800 of comment, may justice be done and may David pay 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.760 for his crime. The name of David's mother, do Norah 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:44.319 appears on screen. You might remember her from previous episodes. 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:50.400 She's always been her son's most unwavering defender. Everything will 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:55.959 come out, Everything will come out some day. I am 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:01.400 more than true. My faith is like an breakable and 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:10.080 I know that somehow, somewhere someone will be able two 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.840 to tell the truth about all this and how everything 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.920 has been manipulated. Donorra types her response in the margin. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:23.080 She says, God will never allow David to be punished 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.760 for this crime because he's innocent. Someone snaps back and 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.000 tells her to leave God out of it. That triggers 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:35.640 backlash from other backers of David. One says Berta was 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:40.920 a fraud, someone who stoked conflict for personal gain. The 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:45.920 running commentary never stops. It appears as a constant scroll, 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:56.800 unrolling throughout the trial, and it will only get nastier. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.320 It's apri two days after the trial was supposed to 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.960 have ended, but new appeals and complaints by the defense 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.960 have had to be sorted out and dismissed in turn. Finally, 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:15.720 it's time for the opening statements. The public prosecutors go first, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:22.240 and I'm not just woman. They explain that they're going 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.960 to present hard evidence that will leave no doubt of 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.480 David's involvement in this killing. He was in communication with 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:33.320 some of the people who have already been convicted for 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.320 taking part in the murder. Their most important witnesses will 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:42.960 be the government telephonic investigators who extracted those communications and 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.800 who have mapped out the connections that they say put 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:52.120 David at the center of the crime. Next, the private 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.480 attorneys representing Berta's family have a turn. They'll argue that 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:02.680 David's company, DESA was essentially a criminal organization. They say 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:10.760 it used political and economic connections to harass and terrorize Berta. Finally, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:15.800 it's the defenses turn. They reject everything the prosecutors have 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.440 implied in their statements. They argue that the Honduran investigators, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.640 the same ones that the prosecutors consider their star witnesses, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.600 are the ones who need to be brought to justice. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:33.040 The defense says these investigators felt pressure from the victims 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.560 family and from the international community to appear as if 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:49.160 they were solving this crime. Serious irregularities. David's attorneys say 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:54.440 the state's telephone experts manipulated the evidence to implicate David, 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:59.960 and in doing so, the investigators ignored other clues, clues 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:04.760 that might have led them to the real murderers. The 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:10.159 defense strategy is clear from day one. David, they argue, 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:39.520 is the victim of a state sponsored conspiracy. The next day, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:44.359 the first witnesses for the prosecution are called. A police 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.919 investigator places his right hand on the Honduran constitution and 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:53.639 swears to tell the truth, only the truth. After him 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:58.520 comes a medical examiner and a ballistics expert. Together they 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.560 established the facts of the case that aren't in dispute. 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:08.600 On March two, three men broken too Berta's house at 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:12.879 about even pm. They shot her dead, and they also 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.239 shot Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist who was staying with 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.760 Berta in a guest bedroom. He survived. In the weeks 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:26.960 following the murder, investigators examined data from nearby cell phone towers. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.560 They identified a few cell phones that didn't belong to 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:35.119 local residents, but we're active in Bartas Subdivision near the 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.879 time of the murder. Those suspicious phones had been in 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:46.639 contact with individuals connected directly or indirectly to David's company Dessa. 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.800 Two months after the murder, police arrested the alleged hitmen. 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.840 That was the same day they also arrested to DESSA 0:18:56.000 --> 0:19:00.880 employees with connections to David. The same day that hecobo 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.480 Atala called David with the news. One of the men 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:09.159 arrested that day was the former head of security for 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:13.000 the Damn Project that bear to opposed. He was an 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:19.800 ex military officer named Douglas Bustillo. You'll hear Bustillo's name again. 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.120 That's because the text messages and call logs that were 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.399 extracted from his cell phone are vital keys to the 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:34.600 prosecution's case against David. There are thousands of pages of 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:40.359 these communications. During the trial, experts spend days on the 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:45.800 stand reading aloud individual messages. He has the name of 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:54.240 Plan Decontinencia Passiva. That message, for example, is from a 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:59.080 WhatsApp chat group that included David. A Death employee at 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.359 the time, says he has been in contact with people 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:07.920 he refers to as quote informants. The state prosecutors explained 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:13.800 Thedessa for three years had cultivated paid informants to monitor 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.280 bar To his movements. This included some people who claimed 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:24.000 to be part of Bart's organization. In one message, sent 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.960 less than a month before the murder, Adessa manager writes 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.439 to David and the others saying, quote, she said again 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.320 that some of their people tell us everything. But she 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.480 didn't refer to any particular person. She said, David Castillo 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.119 knows everything when she goes there. The prosecutors want to 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:51.760 underscore this idea. David Castillo knows everything. Remember his background. 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.400 He's a graduate of West Point who returned to Honduras 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.240 to serve as a military intelligence officer. Bar to his 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:05.280 friends and family believe that history is deeply significant. They 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.920 say he's the kind of person you can never take 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.640 at face value, a spy, someone who tries to get 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.760 close to people only to get information that he can 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.320 use to his advantage. And they say he leveraged his 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:25.360 military and political contacts against Berta. The prosecutors sift through 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:29.080 some of the text messages to illustrate this. They point 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.720 to one exchange between David and Danielle Atala. Danielle is 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.760 the CFO of Deessa and he's also a member of 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:43.879 the Tala Zabla family, the company's principal investors. David writes, Danny, 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.240 I need the cash for the afternoon meetings. Witnesses for 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:53.280 the prosecution suggests those meetings may have involved politicians. At 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.119 the time, the president of Honduras was named Pepe Lobo. 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.920 David writes, the air just as Peppe to resolve death's 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.520 problem caused by Copeene. They just saw him in the 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:12.159 Council of Ministers. We have a mayor, daniel Atala responds, 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:19.919 the one from Intibuka went yes. David writes, The prosecutors 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.199 have no proof that any payments were actually made, no 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:28.200 bank statements or canceled checks or corroborating testimony, and they 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:32.119 present no evidence that those politicians actually did them many favors. 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.800 About ten days after that exchange, David sends a message 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:41.240 asking for cash to take to Antibuka in court. The 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.800 expert reads Daniel's response. Remember he says there's only sixty 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:52.480 because the rest is for the minister. Prosecutors also offer 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:56.000 other messages that they say suggests Deessa was paying off 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:01.000 lawyers and witnesses to protect itself from legal troubles. In 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:05.480 one exchange between David and the other officials, they discuss 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.919 an incident that threatened to land someone connected to the 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.600 company in hot water. One of them rights, the woman 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.199 making the accusation and the supposed witnesses are from via 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:20.240 da Anhelis and we need to work them in a 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.840 subtle way. This has to be done through third parties 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:29.040 to avoid them saying that there's coercion, threats, extortion, bribes 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:34.600 invalidating the witnesses or the evidence. The message continues, and 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.840 take care of the bosses, take care of ourselves and 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:43.720 of course protect our company. David has maintained that Deessa 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:47.919 sometimes appealed to police and other officials for help, and 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:51.160 that they had every right to do so because Barton 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:55.920 and Copeine were waging a violent and completely illegal campaign 0:23:56.160 --> 0:24:01.160 against it. Last year, from his jail cell, David told 0:24:01.240 --> 0:24:04.560 me that of course he contacted the police and other 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:09.480 officials asking for their support. People from Bart's organization had 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:13.880 vandalized his work site, he said, destroying equipment and setting 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:18.560 buildings on fire. They had to be stopped. That's what 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:23.440 we think is normal. But we are criticized saying that 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:30.040 we manipulated or that we uh influenced the police. You 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:34.080 see one people going into your site or to your house, 0:24:34.840 --> 0:24:40.440 aren't with much chittis and with um molotop bombs, with 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:44.879 fire and gasoline, and you get scared. And what you 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:47.280 do is you call the police and you let them 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:50.360 know these people are invading my property. Please come here, 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:55.440 do something, get them out. But these messages being read 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:59.160 in court now we're new and some reference that vandalism 0:24:59.240 --> 0:25:02.880 against deaths a by members of Copeine. They don't reflect 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:06.040 even a hint of the same serious concerns that David 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:10.560 expressed to me after the fact. Less than two weeks 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:15.119 before the murder, David and other DESSA officials were Corresponding 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:20.280 via group chat, one employee mentioned that the protesters aligned 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:24.160 with Berta damage some Dessa property near the damn site. 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:29.480 He suggested that the company highlight the damage and publicize 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:34.720 pictures of it. David writes to the group, we have 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:38.679 to take advantage of the evidence. Someone else chimes in. 0:25:39.680 --> 0:25:43.520 The damages are insignificant, but the information that we possess 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:48.120 is convincing in order to crush them. A few minutes later, 0:25:48.280 --> 0:25:52.840 David writes, with a lot of strategy, this information has 0:25:52.880 --> 0:26:04.399 to explode. I spoke with David numerous times over the 0:26:04.440 --> 0:26:08.040 course of several months. The very first time I met 0:26:08.119 --> 0:26:12.480 him in January, he was in a prison cell outside 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:16.600 of to Gooseagalpa. That day he was ready for my visit. 0:26:17.200 --> 0:26:21.159 He pulled out a notebook he'd written in very small 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:26.200 and neat handwriting, a detailed outline with bullet pointed subheadings. 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:29.600 These were notes of all the ideas he wanted to 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:34.320 make sure to get across. For the first hour and 0:26:34.320 --> 0:26:37.800 a half or so, I'd ask a question and he'd 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:41.879 respond at length, consulting the outline and making his way 0:26:41.920 --> 0:26:45.120 through his notes. One of the headings in that outline 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:50.600 concerned his relationship with Berta. He wanted to emphasize that 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:55.679 he and Berta had genuine affection for each other. The 0:26:55.800 --> 0:26:59.240 public might assume an executive trying to build a dam 0:27:00.080 --> 0:27:04.920 and an environmentalist fighting against it wouldn't get along. There 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:09.520 seems a perfectly natural antagonism there. But right from the 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:14.000 start he wanted to chip away at that assumption. You 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:18.960 have to separate the idea that David Castillo as a 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:23.800 person is design the project and that Berta Casares is coping. 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:30.600 David and Verta were really good friends, but the state 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:34.560 tries to undermine this notion of friendship before the defense 0:27:34.640 --> 0:27:37.760 even gets a chance to make it. The state calls 0:27:37.760 --> 0:27:42.280 a woman named Roussalina Dominguez to the stand. She lives 0:27:42.320 --> 0:27:46.439 near the damn site by the Guacake River. Russellina was 0:27:46.480 --> 0:27:56.200 one of Berta's most loyal allies in that community. Yeah okay. 0:27:56.400 --> 0:28:00.680 Russellina explains that Berta told her about threat she'd been 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:05.760 receiving in the months before her murder, text messages that 0:28:05.880 --> 0:28:12.800 she believed were related to her opposition to the damn being. 0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:19.359 Rosalina is quoting Bertech in a conversation she'd had with 0:28:19.400 --> 0:28:24.199 her shortly before her death quote, if something happens to 0:28:24.240 --> 0:28:28.240 me along the way Berta had told her, it's David 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:41.360 Castillo's fault. David's direct correspondence with Berta did seem friendly. 0:28:42.080 --> 0:28:45.440 He tells her in messages that he values her friendship 0:28:45.840 --> 0:28:50.520 and her responses are often equally polite. But the prosecution 0:28:51.160 --> 0:28:55.640 reads other messages, but David privately exchanged among colleagues in 0:28:55.680 --> 0:29:01.600 a group chat, these strike a different tone. In one 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:06.120 written less than two weeks before her murder, David writes, 0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:12.800 it's an opportune moment to expose Berta and Copeine. She's 0:29:12.880 --> 0:29:17.120 said that our communication activities are the biggest cause of 0:29:17.200 --> 0:29:22.640 headaches for them. Someone responds, it's so great, We're a 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:28.080 pain in the butt of that woman. Paha. Someone else adds, 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:32.160 in my opinion, we should publish photos of the car 0:29:32.280 --> 0:29:35.760 that she drives around in, photos of her house, and 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:40.720 details about all sorts of luxuries she has, including that 0:29:40.880 --> 0:29:45.000 she has kids who are studying in Argentina. In summary, 0:29:45.840 --> 0:29:51.360 that she's getting rich at the cost of others. Some 0:29:51.520 --> 0:29:54.400 of the message strings that the experts read in court 0:29:55.000 --> 0:29:59.400 textas exchange directly between David and Berta don't seem that 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:03.440 note were the at first. One is an exchange between 0:30:03.480 --> 0:30:06.400 the two of them where they're making arrangements to meet. 0:30:07.240 --> 0:30:16.800 Berta is visiting to Gooseagalpa, where David lives. That's a 0:30:16.880 --> 0:30:22.120 state expert witness reading messages between Berta and David. The 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:25.800 expert is taking care to match each message to the 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:32.360 exact geographic location of their telephones. She's establishing exactly where 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:35.760 David and bart were at the time of the exchanges. 0:30:36.520 --> 0:30:42.440 The expert, an electronic forensics analyst named Brenda Barjona, makes 0:30:42.440 --> 0:30:51.120 an interesting observation observation when David Castillo wanted information about 0:30:51.120 --> 0:30:54.880 protest activities and Beta cass his movements, he treated her 0:30:54.920 --> 0:30:58.240 cordially and referred to her as my esteemed he would 0:30:58.280 --> 0:31:04.200 also show interest and available to meet with her. Barjona 0:31:04.280 --> 0:31:07.960 reads some more exchanges to the court. In these, David 0:31:07.960 --> 0:31:10.080 tells Aberta that he won't be able to meet her 0:31:10.240 --> 0:31:14.640 because he's traveling, but Barjona explains to the judges that 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:17.760 cell phone tower data indicates that he wasn't telling her 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:22.040 the truth. He was in fact in town. This leads 0:31:22.080 --> 0:31:31.360 the expert to offer some new insights observations. When Berta 0:31:31.840 --> 0:31:34.560 is proposed meeting with David Castillo, and the meetings were 0:31:34.560 --> 0:31:36.720 not planned by him or were not in his interest. 0:31:37.160 --> 0:31:39.480 It is observed that David was unable to take part 0:31:39.520 --> 0:31:42.560 in such meetings, claiming to be outside of the Galpa 0:31:42.600 --> 0:31:49.920 and in other occasions. Ill Barjona says these messages cast 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:54.160 the friendship between David and Berta in a different light. 0:31:57.800 --> 0:31:59.840 It could be concluded that his friendship with her is 0:31:59.840 --> 0:32:02.440 not sincere and that he simply uses it as a 0:32:02.480 --> 0:32:16.600 means to monitor and in a way to control Brenda. 0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:21.200 Barjona spends several days in the witness box. She walks 0:32:21.280 --> 0:32:23.920 the judges through a four hundred page analysis of the 0:32:23.960 --> 0:32:29.480 telephone records. She says it exposes a plot to kill Barton. 0:32:30.560 --> 0:32:34.120 We've already discussed some of her findings in previous episodes, 0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:46.520 but during the trial she reveals new details. Hello, that's 0:32:46.520 --> 0:32:50.000 a phone call between a man named Mariano Diaz and 0:32:50.040 --> 0:32:54.600 another named Henry Hernandez. Both of them are now in prison. 0:32:55.480 --> 0:32:59.200 Diaz was convicted for acting as a middleman between DESSA 0:32:59.320 --> 0:33:03.200 employees and the hitman hired to carry out the murder. 0:33:03.920 --> 0:33:08.080 Henry Hernandez was convicted for being the ringleader of the 0:33:08.120 --> 0:33:13.960 team of hitman. Investigators had access to this conversation, which 0:33:14.000 --> 0:33:19.160 took place before Barton's murder, because diass phone was being 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:23.920 tapped as part of another unrelated investigation, so they were 0:33:23.960 --> 0:33:27.800