This podcast contains conversations about violence, death, sexual assault,

and includes explicit language. Please take care while listening.

This is part six of an on-the-ground investigation into the mysterious deaths

of Chris Kramer's and the San Frone, two young women who died in the jungle of Panama in 2014.

What happened to Chris and the San? Was it a hiking accident, a double murder, or something

else altogether? I'm Mariana Atensio. In this series, I traveled to the small town of Boquete

with Jeremy Crite from the Daily Beast to reinvestigate this case eight years later.

For a key witness in a famous international mystery, Margarita Valenzuela doesn't exactly look

the part. She's small and frail at 69. Her white hair is tied up neatly in a bun.

When we meet her, she's dressed in a prim and simple gray skirt and a navy blue cardigan.

Her hands are a bit unsteady, and so is her gate. But there is something in her eyes

that belies her age. They are deep set and keen and piercing like the eyes of a hawk.

And when she starts to speak about the death of her son, Osman Valenzuela,

who was just 22 when police say he was murdered in 2014,

those eyes begin to burn with such intensity that it is hard to meet her gaze.

Margarita is at our hotel in Boquete at the request of Martín Ferrada,

the private eye who has been assisting with our investigation. She promises to tell not only how

and why Osman was killed, but also to connect his murder to the deaths of Chris and the San.

At first, Margarita is reluctant to talk to us, but she doesn't seem afraid.

She's angry. Angry that the police have and brought her son's killers to justice.

Angry that all we're doing is talking to her. Talking won't help her situation.

Talking won't keep her safe.

...