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American woman's murder prompts morbid frenzy

by Eric Jackson

Imagine the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech as a cause for relief. As sick as that might sound, such was the case in Panama.

For days prior to a disturbed young man's rampage across and American campus, Fox News was endlessly repeating, occasionally with extra added details, the story about the murder in Panama City of American real estate investor Toni Grossi-Abrams, who came here from the New York borough of Staten Island. A lightweight in the Big Apple's newspaper wars, the Staten Island Advance, was similarly bidding to gain ground with daily headlines about Grossi-Abrams, who was stabbed to death in her Via Veneto apartment, dismembered and stuffed into a suitcase, then incinerated for several hours on a field in Rio Abajo that's ordinarily used by boys in that West Indian section of town for pick-up soccer games.

Kids found the charred remains the next day while on their way to school. Meanwhile, that same morning a carpenter came to Grossi-Abrams's apartment and found it covered in blood.

Held on suspicion of murder was another American woman, Debra Ann Ridgley, who was seen with Grossi-Abrams at Expat Socials in Panama City and was a tenant of the dead woman. Ridgley was questioned by police abotu Grossi-Abrams's disappearance and detained it was noticed that she had a serious cut on her hand and apparent blood under her fingernails. Police are also looking for two Colombian men.

Because the victim was American, and because she had been involved in a high-stakes lawsuit against a cousin of former presidential candidate and Foreign Minister José Miguel Alemán (among several other business disputes arising from her real estate dealings), and because of the gruesome way in which the body was disposed, and because the suspect in custody was also an American woman, sensationalist media in both the United States and Panama latched onto the case.

Police and prosecutors on the one hand, and defense lawyers on the other, kept up a steady stream of pronouncements about the case to feed the headlines. People in the community down here contacted The Panama News with details about Ridgley and Grossi-Abrams. Others fed information, some of it wild speculation about cocaine-crazed killers or Colombian hit men, some of it inaccurate and racist stereotypes about the nature of Rio Abajo, to US-based media. One local copyright pirate copied every news story about the case that he could find on Google onto his commercial website, called it a "scoop" and had his shills go on the various Panama-related email discussion groups to berate The Panama News for not providing equivalent "coverage."

The local slant on events has also been affected by business interests. Surely all the stories on Fox News will slow down some American retirees' interest in Panama as a place to live. Surely the fact that Ridgley and Grossi-Adams were introduced by International Living, the most prominent of the businesses promoting Panama not only as a place to retire but as a place to get rich by real estate speculation, is going to affect the credibility of that organization. And while Rio Abajo has been savaged in the US press, the increasingly chaotic nature of Via Veneto, a tourist drag where street prostitution and petty crime have become defining characteristics in recent times, has hardly been mentioned.

Caught up in the hue and cry, some members of the local American community have begun to take sides, mostly against Ridgley because of her reputation for a hedonistic lifestyle and associations with the fugitive Colombian suspects. Grossi-Abrams, however, has also been said by various sources --- locals who have contacted The Panama News and others here and in the United States who have talked to US media --- to have had a violent temper, a litigious public record and a habit of sharp-edged business dealings. By several disputed accounts the conflict that ended in Grossi-Abrams's death began with an accusation that Ridgley had broken into her landlady's apartment and escalated with an attempted extrajudicial eviction that set off a violent argument.

Those, however, are all circumstances that relate more to context than ultimate culpability. There are conflicting claims about who killed Grossi-Adams and why, and The Panama News will not attempt to "solve" this crime, allegations about which may go before a jury of government employees or may be heard by a judge under Panama's criminal procedures. Conviction for murder in this case would mean a possible maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Torrijos defends "security law" proposals
Colombian kidnap industry discussed by high-profile victim's sister

High court to hear challenge to ACP's multi-billion dollar "reserve fund"

Terrorist whom Mireya pardoned gets bail in the USA
US media, a few gringos here are fascinated by grisly murder case

A peek down into a multiple urban pathology
Panama News Briefs