A year ago today, Valerie's body was found on the floor of her rented house in the town of Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, with a bullet in her head. She had been murdered for a picture she took of an official on the island, and, for the subsequent threat she made to him.
Her apartment was ransacked, her safe opened, her money stolen and the cheap black pearls she wore when in the Galapagos, had been torn from her neck. The beads that had not been collected by the men (not the police) who were sent to clean up the murder scene, were found by Valerie's maid three days later under the furniture and in the corners of her bedroom. She fought that night. I relive her terror.
Prosecutor Edwardo Sanchez declared Valerie's death a suicide twenty minute after being convoked by the police. He never changed his mind even after it was proven that short of being an acrobat she could not have killed herself.
Valerie's murder was drug related. The local cartel run by a family that lives in the Galapagos deals in cocaine.
Do I know who ordered Valerie's death? I do, and so do the dozens of other people involved in this case.
Specifically Valerie took a picture of an official of the island, high up in the cartel, snorting coke, and, probably under the influence herself, got on her high horses and threatened the man with posting his picture on social media, if he did not stop selling drugs to her children (Valerie had been teaching Galapanian kids how to cook in a culinary school on Santa Cruz for eight years).
Later that night, she emailed her mother and wrote that she had done something very stupid, that someone had saved her (it was a policeman man but we don't know which one; he hasn't stepped forward), but she was scared for her life and was coming home. Two nights later she was killed. Her body discovered in the morning of July 5 1914.
It took months of investigating along with help from friends in Ecuador, and in the States, the Miami Herald, the Galapagos Digital blog, as well as the tenacity of my lawyer Adam Ruiz who spent four months in the Galapagos before the case was finally reopened as a homicide by the Dinased (Ecuadorian FBI).
The Dinased are the ones who apprised us of the drug cartel and what really happened to Valerie. Until then we were convinced that she had been killed for sending a man who had raped her a year earlier to jail for eight years. He got out of jail, with the help of Edwardo Sanchez, after serving only one year, and for all we know he may have been the trigger man, hired by the cartel. But, as far as who ordered the hit it was the man whose picture I wish she had emailed me.
At the end of January 2015 the Dinased convoked my lawyer from the states for a series of meeting in Quito. The meetings included as many a nine members of the Dinased. After hours of going through all the information, they asked Adam Ruiz if he would wear a microphone and along with a 'girl friend,' (a member of the Dinased), return to the Galapagos to interview "persons of interest." They showed Adam Ruiz the second autopsy report that was made after Valerie's body was exhumed and sent to Quito Ecuador. In that autopsy, there were no powder marks on her left hand (she was left handed), the shot left no powder residue on her left temple and the trajectory of the bullet was from high to low. Simply said she was shot form a distance by someone taller than her.
The Dinased told Mr. Ruiz that they were close to making arrests and would he return two weeks later to be outfitted with "girl friend' and mike. We were on a roll!
However, from that day on, all the doors I hoped were opening in Ecuador closed like a bad movie version of a prison lockdown. Every lead we had vanished.
The Dinased did not answer our phone calls or emails, the original agent in charge of the case received death threats and not only left the island but quit the Dinased. The head judge in charge of all legal matters in the Galapagos, a man who had helped us with the law suit I instigated again Prosecutor Sanchez was also threatened and moved himself and his family to the mainland. The case was returned to the Galapagos under the supervision of Edwardo Sanchez (!). The minister of the Interior, Jose Serano, with whom Adam Ruiz had met with in Washington, a man who pledged his help in the matter has not returned our calls or emails. And, as far as we can tell the Dinased is out of the picture.
I hired a law firm in Guayaquil, to get us, among other things, the official version of the second autopsy, which, unfortunately was totally non committal. No mention of suicide or murder, simply 'Violent death" (yep!). The report contradicted the autopsy the Dinased showed Adam Ruiz three months earlier (Latest version: Power burns on Valerie's temple and a bullet trajectory form low to high).
It is obvious to those of us who have been working the case for a year, that the cartel has either bribed or threatened everyone involved in the inquiry.
Nevertheless, I have no intention of stopping the investigation. The Ecuadorian law firm will gather up the reports from the Dinased and other investigators, and we will continue to pressure the officials we know are involved, for answers. Eventually someone will blink and want to cut a deal. One way or the other those who committed this murder will pay. It may take time but I have plenty of that and the wherewithal to make it happen.
Of the many setbacks we have encountered dealing with the real third world and the power of the drug trade over every sector of the population, also include the disappointment I harbor against my government. Other than condolences and lip service the US Embassy has done absolutely nothing to help move this case, involving a US citizen, murdered on foreign soil, forward. What information the bureaucrats have on the case has been given to them by my people. And although the relationship between Ecuador and the US is not at its best, how difficult is it for the US Ambassador to request a meeting with president Corea? Not as elementary as donning a tuxedo for a soiree in Quito but in my book, certainly the job of a diplomat.
Has this passing of time in any way changed the deep feeling of loss my family has experienced? No, it hasn't, but the shrill fingernails on the blackboard-horror of the first days-followed by the waves of grief that overwhelmed our bodies at a gut level for weeks afterwards, has, in my case subsided to the the finality of the work 'never'(as in never seeing her again) to the memory of her smile, her love of nature, her 'Mensa" intelligence, the foods we cooked and shared.... and on and on.
I can't talk to Terry's private sorrow, but I hear it whenever she plays the piano. Something she loved to do every night going to sleep before Valerie was killed. The sounds must remind her of those better days. She plays infrequently.
Like everyone who has lost loved one we will move forward. We have grandchildren and the last thing either one of us would ever do is inflict our bereavement on this young generation. They deserve to begin their lives clean of what evils will undoubtedly present itself to them later in life.
Terry with the help of her faith and me with entrenched in a crusade for revenge will make everything as right as it can be.
All the best to our family and friends.