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Although much lurid stuff has been written and broadcast, the story will probably get longer and more sensational

Is it safe to go outdoors now that "Wild Bill" Cortez and Jena Reese --- or are they William Sectar Howard and Laura Michelle Ruiz --- or are they William D. Holbert and Laura M. Reese --- are in custody?

Of course not. Panama is a society of aggressive drivers and violent young gangsters and it has poisonous snakes.

But it does appear that a long crime spree by a violent couple, which probably spanned several countries and took at least two and probably seven or more lives in Bocas del Toro, has come to an end.

Last March Cher Hughes, a US citizen and tourist hostel operator on Isla Cauchero in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, went missing. Also missing was Bo Icelar. In possession of the hostel that Hughes had been running were the "new owners," a guy with a southern US accent who called himself "Wild Bill" --- William Adolfo Cortez --- and his wife Jena "Jane" Reese. This couple was here on Dutch passports, and had traveled in and out of Panama under this identity, with connections to Belize and Mexico.

Hughes's and Icelar's friends filed a missing persons report. The Bocas Breeze published requests for information on the whereabouts of the two. The FBI attaché in Panama was notified. Hughes's estranged husband filed another missing persons report. Then website owner Don Winner made some inquiries and noticed a pattern of Wild Bill and Jena acquiring properties of people who disappeared, and notified Panamanian police and prosecutors about this.

Still, there was not much of an investigation. Panama is not good about catching serial killers (if that's what we have). But the people who took over Hughes's hostel in Bocas made their way to Volcan, and then dropped out of sight. In their absence, a dog unearthed bones from a shallow pit on the 32-hectare hostel grounds. They were the skeletal remains of Cher Hughes. That brought the police in, and soon another set of remains, identified as those of Iclear, were unearthed. The search for the couple was on. Two former employees of the hostel and an expatriate family of three are missing in Bocas, and on top of that "Wild Bill" had boasted to friends about killing an indigenous man for going onto "his" dock.

The trail led to Costa Rica, to a river chase along the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and the couple's arrest by a Nicaraguan army patrol. When arrested the two presented Dutch passports in the names of William Sectar Howard and Laura Michelle Ruiz. Costa Rica wanted them for stealing a boat, Panama wanted them for murder and the FBI, Scotland Yard and Dutch police were also interested.

Meanwhile back in Bocas, police found more than three dozen passports and identification cards belonging to other people from the Dutch Antilles, the Dominican Republic and several Central American countries. It's not clear whether these were forged, stolen, purchased, taken from murder victims or acquired by a combination of these means.

Early on in the chase from Panama to Nicaragua, Panamanian authorities were making references to a string of killings in the United States. However, nothing under the names that the couple were using here appeared in any Google search for warrants or newspaper stories.

It turns out that America's Most Wanted had featured this couple before --- for a house theft, a car theft, fraud and assaulting a cop. They were not wanted for murder. The names given on that US television show were William D. Holbert and Laura M. Reese. Listed as aliases were Luke Gregory Kuhn and Donald Lee Brukart for him, and Michelle Brukart for her. America's Most Wanted traced "Wild Bill" back to an Asheville, North Carolina store that sold white supremacist regalia and literature.

The couple's flight crisscrossed the United States and took them to Ireland, according to the 2006 television show.

As this story was written, Nicaragua was planning a quick extradition to Panama and some US television stations were giving sketchy reports that the couple are suspects in some 20 murders across the United States.

In Panama, if the two are convicted of murder they could be sentenced to consecutive 30-year prison terms on each count, under conditions that they probably would not survive until their release dates. However, in this country murderers have been known to bribe prison officials to let them go, and Panama usually does not hold onto foreign prisoners with gangland or extremist ties who are wanted elsewhere, because there is a danger of confederates from the outside assisting in their escapes.