Just Cause: Murder in Panama 1989

By Mark Casigh

Read a story of real heroes, a Federal Agent working a homicide in a hostile country, a violent land during an extremely violent time. Life is cheap and an American life is cheaper still. You’ve got armed guerrillas & insurgents operating in your back yard, a case to clear, witnesses to interview, evidence to collect, a crime lab to keep busy. You’ve got a case to clear, witnesses to interview, evidence to collect a crime lab to keep busy and a Special Agent in Charge that wants this closed yesterday! In the meantime, an invasion is coming, but when? And when it gets here, your killer will slip away into the jungle, never to be seen again, in the madness and insanity that became, OPERATION; Just Cause

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728336121

Mark Casigh

Mark Casigh is a graduate of the University of the State of New York, Albany, NY, a former Chicago Police Officer on the South Side, 3rd District, Grand Crossings Station, and a retired CID Agent, having worked both the Chicago and Detroit Field Offices. He now lives in Southeastern Michigan, is a member of the Chicago Police Department’s Emerald Society, and the CID Agent’s Association.

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I

UNTIL DECEMBER…

The Year in Review

1989

It was 1989, the Iron Curtain was crumbling with rust and decay. Freedom was sweeping through the Eastern Bloc like a prairie fire. Chairman of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev was barely keeping it together. In the end, he couldn’t and wouldn’t, but history would prove him to be the ideal captain to pilot their ship through the rough waters ahead of them.

It was the year J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus would receive the Nobel Prize for Medicine, while Norman F. Ramsey, Hans G. Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul would win it in Physics. British Actor Daniel Radcliffe, who would go on to worldwide fame as Harry Potter, Canadian Actress Nina Dobrev and American Pop Singer Taylor Swift were born that year, and while they came into the world that year, American Serial Killer Ted Bundy was kicked off of it by way of the electric chair, in Florida State Prison. American Actor John Cassavetes, Prince Wilhelm Victor of Prussia, and the Emperor Hirohito of Japan would leave it gracefully, and less gracefully, Grace DeGarza.

Who is Grace DeGarza, you ask?

That’s not surprising, since she was essentially a nobody. A peasant in a sea of peasants, surrounded by a land of peasants.

Grace DeGarza was a Panamanian citizen whose moral compass was pointed in the right direction. One who knew right from wrong, despite the murky and nebulous definition of those terms in the slums of her childhood? She grew up dirt poor on the streets of Balboa, Panama. And while her historical significance has been lost to history, her memory lives on in these pages.

September 1987

• U.S. Senate passes a resolution urging Panama oust Manuel Noriega as President and return to a civilian led government.

- The Panamanians responded by alleging violations of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties, which gave Panama ownership over the Panama Canal

November 1987

• A U.S. Senate resolution cuts military and economic aid to Panama, in the Person of Noriega.

- Panamanians response was to adopt resolution restricting U.S. military presence, which has always been a constant in Panama, since 1852 when General (then Captain U.S. Grant crossed the point where the Canal now sits. This point was also where first construction began and was known as the Culebra Cut

February 1988

• Noriega is indicted on drug-related charges, primarily money laundering and corruption, for while being on the CIA payroll since the 1960s, he was also coordinating with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, then turning around and selling information of US DEA Operations to the Central & South American Drug Czars so that they can better defeat US efforts to capture them.

- U.S. forces begin planning contingency operations in Panama (OPERATION: Blue Spoon).

March 1988

• 15 March: First of four deployments of U.S. forces begins providing additional security to U.S. installations.

• 16 March: PDF officers attempt a coup against Noriega. It doesn’t end well.

April 1988

• 5 April: Additional U.S. forces deployed to reinforce the small number of troops already on the ground.

• 9 April: Joint Task Force Panama activated.

May 1989

• 7 May: Civilian elections are held in Panama and Guillermo Endara, handily beat Noriega’s candidate, Carlos Duque. With a 3 to 1 margin, Noriega is enraged. Not liking the result, he declares the election as invalid on May 9th. It’s worth pointing out that these elections were not held in response to any US Resolution.

• 11 May: President Bush orders 1,900 additional combat troops to Panama (OPERATION: Nimrod Dancer).

• 22 May: Convoys conducted to assert U.S. freedom of movement. Additional transport units travel from bases in the territorial U.S. to bases in Panama, and back, for this express purpose.

June–September 1989 (Operation Nimrod Dancer)

• U.S. begins conducting joint training and freedom of movement exercises (Operation Sand Flea and Operation Purple Storm). Additional transport units continue repeatedly traveling from bases in the territorial U.S. to bases in Panama, and back, for this express purpose.

October 1989 (Operation Nimrod Dancer)

• 3 October: Another coup is attempted to depose Manuel Noriega is launched, but Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) manage to quash the attempt.

During the 1960’s Cold War, Noriega sided with the United States versus Russia for dominance in the Central and South American Continents. Noriega made roughly $100,000 per year being on the CIA payroll, since 1967. In the late 1980s, and now on the DEA’s payroll, he was making $200,000 a year as a source and facilitator for Anti-Narcotics activity in the region.

By 1989, the relationship between Noriega and the US had soured considerably. Noriega having amassed such a considerable powerbase in Central America, no longer felt obligated to the US for the paltry sum that he was paid. Quite full of himself he began to thumb his nose at his American backers.

Both Presidents Reagan & Bush went through the process of obtaining indictments in US Courts on drug charges, but Noriega treated these as hollow and empty annoyances, nearly meaningless.

Until December…

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II

THE MACHINE

15:30, Wednesday, December 13, 1989; Headquarters, US Army Criminal Investigation Command, Panama Field Office, 121 Big Row Street, Veracruz, Fort Kobbe, Oeste Province Distrito Arraiján, Panamá:

Special Agent Cara Duda just happened to be nearest to the front desk when she came in, Can I help you?

Yeah, I’m Sergeant Bretzlaugh, I was told to report to the Special Agent in Charge.

Hold on a sec. Cara looked over her shoulder into what is typically called in police parlance, ‘the bullpen,’ where each agent has his own cubicle from which he/she fights crime throughout the world over.

Cara was pretty enough, a little on the short side, long dark brown hair, pleasant face, although it seemed to stay in a perpetual scowl, a thirty something single soldier. Mary Beth guessed her to be an E-7 (Sergeant First Class). CID Command was made up almost entirely of agents who were actually active duty soldiers, a substantial percentage were senior non-commissioned officers, like Cara, but most seemed to be Warrant Officers which in the Army was a sort of in-between grade between Senior NCOs and Commissioned Officers. Warrant Officers were typically specialists in their fields. There were a great many in the medical corps and also in the aviation field, then of course, there was the Intelligence field and lastly, CID Command.

Cara wore her gold shield on her belt, right next to her Smith & Wesson Model 10, 2-inch .38 caliber revolver. Another distinction between CID and the rest of the army. Mary Beth did not like CID, as the only contact she had ever had with them before had always been negative. Once when she was in Basic Training, one of the other women in her company had been mysteriously pulled out of training one day. The next time anyone saw her, she was standing on the steps to the orderly room, wearing handcuffs and two men in suits, standing on each side of her as they shuffled her into a van and drove away, never to be seen again.

Another time, at Fort Drum, NY, one of the soldiers in her company had tried to kill the company First Sergeant. Again, two men in suits, took him away in irons and he was never seen again. So, in her book, this made them little better than the KGB.

Has anybody seen Bill?

Bill Troller, the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Panama Field Office chose that exact second to step out of his door on his way to the coffee pot.

He raised a finger, Yeah, I have, he’s such an asshole.

Cara looked to the Sergeant and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, Just follow the asshole.

Cara had been a CID Agent for ten years now and was still angry about it. Sure, she’d volunteered for it, even switched her Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), for it. Yes, it was much more mentally stimulating than being a Generator Mechanic, but where was all the excitement? Every single day of those last ten years, she felt like a clerk with a gun.

Mary Beth Bretzlaugh however, loved her job. She joined the Army to be a Voice Intercept Operator. This required that she learn a language, and in the Army’s great lottery of life, she won Spanish as her language to learn.

For the most part, the Army assigns the language to be learned. Spanish, being a Category I language was much easier to learn than say a Cat IV, such as Hangeul, Mandarin or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA).

This job also put her squarely inside the Intelligence Field, the Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) field to be more specific. However, to be honest, those first few years at the Intercept site in Mexico City, where she was working at a huge radio and hammering away on a keyboard in her position, just listening to voice traffic, spinning the dial, hoping to hear something of use… yes, those days were pretty boring, and there were a lot more of them than she really cared to remember at this point in her career.

Mary Beth followed the SAC into the coffee room, Hi, you’re the boss?

Bill Troller had a thick mop of black graying hair and mustache that was nowhere close to regulation requirements, Yes, but don’t let the word get out, I might become the target of the next coup. A thinly veiled joke in reference to the most recent of three coup attempts to overthrow and oust Manuel Noriega.

I’m Mary Beth Bretzlaugh, from the 525th MI Brigade, I was told you need a Spanish Speaker.

Actually, I need several. I guess you’re going to be the first of a few that I have coming. Tim Flynn’s team is going to be next in the rotation so I’m going to saddle you with him. The rotation being who is up to catch the next case that rolls in.

Mary Beth lightly joked back, You mean saddle him, with me, don’t you?

Bill shook his head and looked at Mary Beth putting down the coffee cream, No, I don’t. You’ll see once you meet him. He needs a lot of adult supervision, you’ll see what I mean in just a second.

I’ve also just saddled him with a few new apprentice agents, and a few extra security folks, so he’s going to have the largest team, but since he is catching next, and with the local flare ups, and given that we have so much contact with the local civilian populace, and that it is frequently unwelcomed or negative contact, I think it’s best that I have a fluent Spanish linguist with each of my teams, at least for the time being. Come on, follow me, he added in finality.

As they walked, Bill continued, I’m going to be depending on you to use a very large degree of diplomacy these days. After all, nobody wants to be the reason that we go to war with Panama.

Mary Beth walked with an air of confidence. The sort of confidence that comes with being an expert at your job. She also had a confidence that comes with healthy homespun good looks. She had shoulder lengthy chestnut colored hair, so by regulation it had to be worn up in a bun on the back of her head, but her real confidence came with her fine hour glass shaped figure that was topped with a very healthy bosom. Secretly, the source of her greatest pride.

Women who know they are pretty with a good shape just walk with a confidence that they timid will never know.

Bill walked beside her and steered her back into another bullpen, considerably smaller than the first, and Mary Beth reasoned that since this one had bigger desks, no cubicles, more room, that this was where the more senior agents hung their hats.

A thick shouldered, broad chested man with wavy hair, leaning back in his seat, playing with an unlit cigarette held the phone to his ear and was obviously not pleased with the discussion he was having on it. When are you guys at CRC going to realize that not everybody is within the DC Beltway? And that when you say you’re going to call me back, I expect you to call me back… Now I’ve been waiting for a criminal history check on those names for more than two weeks, just how long does it take to run five names?

Frustrated, What’s that? You’ll call me back? Okay, you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

Tim Flynn slammed the phone down and yelled, Where are my cucumber scented Ass-Wipes?

Mary Beth almost howled with laughter.

Bill turned to her and said, Don’t encourage him. He then turned to Flynn and said, I’m here to tell you Tim, nobody stole your baby wipes.

And on the heels of Mary Beth’s previous thought, this also could be where they hide the agents that are an embarrassment to them.

And just how would you know? Tim asked.

Mary Beth sized Tim up quickly, he wasn’t exceptionally tall, maybe 5’10" he tried to bury his face in his paperwork and ignore the SAC, hoping he would move onto another desk.

When it was clear that Bill wasn’t going anywhere else, he looked up.

What is it Bill? He tried to keep eye contact with Bill but the striking and extremely shapely brunette standing beside him made that impossible. He was however able to keep his eyes within their sockets.

This is Mary Beth Bretzlaugh, she’s from ASA (an Old Vietnam abbreviation for the Army Security Agency, currently called the Army Intelligence Agency, AIA, Bill was mired in the past), your Spanish Interpreter, Bill introduced.

Tim stood and extended his hand, Hi, it’s good to meet you, he said with a slight smile. He could not believe his good fortune! What did I do to deserve this piece of good luck?

Tim had narrow eyes, high cheekbones, very dark brown hair that he wore parted on the left. He was extremely muscular and in case you had forgotten about his strength, the grip of his handshake quickly reminded you. With broad shoulders, and chest, thick well-muscled arms, and a nice flat stomach, Mary Beth thought, I could’ve done far worse, he was, exceptionally attractive. Although, so far, he appears to be a bit of a lout.

And one more thing Tim, you team is assembled in the conference room, Cara should be finished with them now.

She was still smiling with residual laughter from his efforts to break the case of the missing cucumber scented baby wipes.

With that, Bill turned to Bretzlaugh shook her hand one more time and said, It’s good to meet you Mary Beth, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.

Good to meet you also,

Tim nodded and grabbed a box that was on the floor next to his desk and put in his chair, then he walked over to the coat rack and took a blue nylon windbreaker from a hanger, grabbed a few more books from the shelves, and tossed them all into the box, then hefted it up and said, Okay Marty Beth, let’s go meet everybody.

Tim walked her back toward the main bull pen but turned left just short of Bill’s office, presumably into the conference room.

Inside the conference room were four other men, all in civilian clothes, and another woman. This woman was obviously Hispanic, short, perhaps 5’3" tall and had the largest most amazing eyes and exceptionally long wavy brown hair that could only be called gorgeous.

The men on the other hand seemed to run the full spectrum.

Tim place the box at the head of the table and looked around the table and nodded, liking what he saw, Man, look at this machine… We are going to do some serious crime fighting folks. Believe it.

Alright everybody, listen up, this here is Mary Beth Bretzlaugh, she’ll be our Spanish interpreter, which means she’ll primarily be with me, since I already have two Spanish speakers here.

Tim turned to Mary Beth, I have some stuff to hand out and I’ll introduce you as I go.

Tim took a stack of manuals from the box, then stepped to the rather short blond hair young man, your typical twenty-something soldier, complete with freckles. If she thought Tim was well-muscled, this kid was very-well-muscled. He also didn’t appear very tall, it’s difficult to tell when people are sitting down.

This is Darren Bezio (pronounced Be Zeye Oh), he’s also SD (Special Duty), to my section, and I’ll go into that more later. Tim laid a manual in front of him.

Another dirty blonde sitting next to Darren, also got a manual, This is Dylan Becker, also SD this section, and Tim moved on. It was clear that Darren and Dylan were practiced heavy weight lifters.

Stopping at the corner of the table, This is Cesar Compos, he’s one of our apprentice agents, he came to us from the 549th Military Police. He was an MPI Investigator. Cesar got a manual too.

Then there was a short Hispanic female who had strangely sharp, yet friendly facial features, to include large chocolate brown eyes in which one might get lost and they had their own intensity, and didn’t miss much at all, Rosa also had the longest waviest dark brown hair that Mary Beth had ever seen in the Army, and for that reason alone, Mary Beth was jealous and instantly hated her for her hair, then she noticed her smooth, clear, cocoa butter brown complexion, just another reason to hate her. The fact she looks perpetually fifteen years old doesn’t go in her favor either!

This is Rosa Mendez, she’s also an MPI investigator coming over to us from the five-forty-ninth. Mendez and Compos are also Spanish speakers, so I plan on busting them up between Bezio and Becker

Lastly was the short Asian man, about 23 years old, he seemed to smile a lot and that gave him a pleasant enough face. He was much leaner than Dylan and Darren, but also well-muscled.

Tim laid down a manual in front of him, This is June Choh. Now let me explain the break down here.

"June, Dylan and Darren, are all assigned here special duty because with the tensions being what they are, the DOD is beefing up security everywhere in the Canal Zone. So, this office has a platoon of infantry assigned to this office from the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Now, enter those three monkeys. Sergeant Choh is their team leader. However, while they are assigned to this office, their covers are, they are a Tactical Military Police/Anti-Crime Team.

Now, Cesar and Rosa, are both apprentice agents and are wait to go to the Basic Special Agent course at Fort McClellan, Alabama.

Tim continued speaking to all this time, What I’ve just given you is a copy of Army Regulation 195-1, the Army Criminal Investigation Program. This is an excellent reference for Crime Scene processing, so study it, learn it, live it.

Tim then set one down in front of Mary Beth.

Next was a fairly large box of floor grade, latex gloves, he handed it to Mary Beth and said, Take four or five pair and hand it around.

She followed his instructions to the letter.

From his never-ending box of Christmas presents, he took four pairs of hand cuffs, then set one down in front of Darren, Dylan, June and Mary Beth.

Cesar and Rosa apparently already had their own.

Tim took a stack of white binders and distributed those, This is CID Regulation 195-1, as you can see, it’s rather thick.

Each binder was at least two and half inches thick with the CID crest on the cover.

Don’t worry about trying to memorize it or even trying to read it at this point, you’ll all become intimately familiar with it as the coming days.

He then grabbed and arm full of the blue windbreakers and gave one to each. Each windbreaker had a large embroidered CID Agent’s gold shield on the left breast and the initials CID on the right, and across the back read POLICE-US Agent.

These are your raid jackets, I don’t know if we’ll be using them much, but here they are. He laid the last one down in front of Mary Beth.

Next, Dylan… He tossed him a small black wallet with silver MP Badges on the inside, Darren, he got the same, June, here you go, these are your credentials that say you are MPI Investigators. The SAC just signed them an hour ago. So, these will add to your covers.

Now, the paperwork. Tim took a short stack of file folders and handed them out to everybody. Including Mary Beth.

These are your individual files on whatever case we land next, open them up and on the left-hand side, you will see pinned in place is the Agent Activity Summary. This is also known as the reading file or the case chronology. Everything you do, gets annotated in here. When I review your cases, this is the first thing everybody looks at. If you did it, until it hits these pages here, it never happened. This is also where you keep track of your hours.

In the left-hand column, you’ll write your last name, your sequence number, then below that you’ll put your hours there. You will only have; Investigative hours, i.e. working a crime scene, witness interview, etc. Administrative hours, typing your reports, working evidence voucher and the like, and Travel hours, between interviews or meeting. So, it’ll read, FLYNN/2292, I: 4.0 hours, T: 1.5, A: 3.0, etc. You round up to the nearest half hour.

Rosa had the first question, What is a sequence number?

An agent’s sequence number is the same as his double 0, number. I was the two thousand, two hundred and ninety-second CID Agent, so mine is 2292. While you guys are here, working on my cases, you’ll use my sequence number. And for Dylan, Darren and June, Yes, I expect you to do MP work while you are assigned to me. After all, you have to look the part of your cover.

"On the right side of the case file, you will find on top, CID Form 44, Personal Identification Form. When you interview anybody, the first thing you do is fill out one of these, get a government issued ID and fill in the blanks, it’s that easy.

Next form in the stack is DA Form 2823, this is a sworn statement, all CID agents are authorized to administer the oath, so Mary Beth, June, Dylan, Darren, you’ve all been deputized," Tim made a sign of the cross in their direction.

Next form in the stack is the Report of Interview, not to be confused with the ROI, the report of investigation. We’ll dive into this quite a bit, but later.

"Next form on the right side is the Evidence Voucher, DA form 4137, we’ll also go into that in much greater detail later. When the time comes to it, let me know your questions and I’ll help you out. Also pinned there are a few manila cardboard Evidence tags, these are DA Form 4002, I gave you each ten. This file folder goes with you everywhere, understood?’

Tim slapped a case file into Mary Beth’s chest, and in faux anger said, And that goes for you too Bretzlaugh.

She chuckled and took it from him.

"Okay, we’re all soldiers here, and we all still have an annual APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), we have to pass, naturally in an office setting, we don’t have organized PT like you guys in the One oh One are used to (he was deliberately singling out June, Dylan and Darren, probably because they were so clearly gym rats). So, if you want to head out on a run or hit the gym, that’s fine with me. Just keep your pagers close by and if it goes off, get here. Don’t hit the showers and then change. Just grab your clothes and come here. I don’t want to