Wndyri Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of The Price of Paradise early and ad-free. Join WNDYRI Plus in the WNDYRI app or on Apple podcasts. The following episode contains a depiction of violence and may not be suitable for all listeners. April 2002. It's getting dark in Bluefields, and Maria's taxi is winding its way through the dimly-lit streets towards home. She yawns. It's been a long day, ending with the talk she was giving over at the university to some visiting US activists called Pastors For Peace. It went well, even if it had run way over time. Now Maria is getting home much later than planned. Earlier, she'd asked Frank, her husband, if he wanted to come.

And he said, No, I'm tired, but I'll be waiting for you at home. Don't worry about it.

The taxi pulls up outside her house. Maria has forgotten her keys again. But anyway, no problem. Frank will let her in. That's odd. Their dog, Nicole, is pacing around outside. Maria was sure she'd left her indoors. She waits.

I'm knocking the door and I'm calling him and he doesn't answer.

She's making so much noise. Frank surely would have heard her. It's unlike him go out without telling her.

And I began to feel worried about it.

Maria walks around to the back of the house. A stroke of luck. Her daughter's bedroom windows open. So she climbs in and walks through to the dining room. And that's when she sees him. On the floor, hands bound at the wrist, mouth gagged, and his shirt soaked with blood. Maria screams.

I couldn't touch him. I was so afraid. At the same time, I thought, The people who did this may be inside. I ran to the door and began to scream to the neighbors for help.

A neighbor comes running.

I looked at him and I said, Go touch Frank and tell me if he's dead. And he said, Yes, ma'am, he's dead.

Some stories were never meant to be heard. Beneath the visible world of parliament's politicians and civil servants lies an invisible state filled with secret operatives playing to very different rules. From WNDYRI, I'm Indra Vana, and this is the Spy Who. This month, we open the file on Nua Anayat Khan, the Spy Who Wouldn't Lie. When Germany invades France, Nour and her family are forced to flee to Britain. But Nour decides she can't just sit out the war, so she accepts one of the most dangerous spy missions of World War II, a job that will put her deep into enemy territory. Follow the Spy Who Now wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Wouldn't Lie early and ad free with WNDYRY Plus. Hi, I'm Anna. And I'm Emily, and we're the hosts of Terrible Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And we are really excited about our latest season because we are talking about someone very, very special. You're so sweet. A fashion icon. Actually, just put this on. A beautiful woman. Your words, not mine. Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm.

Anna, don't tell them where I live. A muse, a mother and a supermodel who defined the '90s. I don't remember doing the last one. Wow, Emily, not you. Obviously, I mean Kate Moss. Oh, I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you? We are going to dive back into Kate's '90s heyday and her insatiable desire to say yes to absolutely everything life has to offer. The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the Rockstar bad boys. Have I said parties? You did mention the parties, but saying yes to excess comes at a price as Kate spirals out of control and risks losing everything she's worked for. Follow Terrible Famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad free on WNDYRY Plus on Apple Podcasts or the WNDYRY app. From WNDRI, I'm Alice Levine, host of British Scandal, and this is the Price of Paradise. Episode 5, The Send-offs. If you're feeling a little all over the place, I'd forgive you. When I first read the transcripts from this story in these interviews, I couldn't get over the distance we've traveled. We started the story, if you remember, way back in Hampshire, with quirky images of a British family packing trifles in their suitcases.

They were about to embark on what was, at worst, a naive adventure to the other side of the world. But just a year after that, Phil passed away. And now, four months later, another man lies dead, Maria's husband. Frank lying face up on the hard tiles of the dining room floor, a bullet wound in the center of his chest. Maria can't bear to look at him. She steps into the kitchen. With shaky hands, she reaches for the phone, but there's no dial tone. The wires have been cut. She races to their bedroom and picks up the other handset. It's still connected. She punches in the number and gets through to the police. Then she calls her neighbors. From there, It's a blur.

At that moment, I felt I went into a deep black hole. I didn't know what my life was going to be like after all this. I was afraid. I felt abandoned. It was a terrible feeling.

Over the next few hours, Maria's house begins to fill with people. Police, neighbors, friends, even some of journalists. She's handed a glass of water. The police are striding around what is now a crime scene, photographing, measuring, collecting. Maria can't think straight. Someone says they have to take Frank's body away for an autopsy. Suddenly, Maria feels overwhelmed.

I just had this feeling that somebody should take care of him, not to leave him alone.

One of Maria's friends their arms around her, and another offers to go with Frank's body. Then suddenly, the questions stop. The police have left, and Frank is gone.

That night, I called my mother-in-law and told her what had happened to Frank. It was one of the hardest thing in my life to do.

Frank's family want him to come home to Monagua to be buried there. Maria quietly immediately agrees. Early the next morning, Maria's son, Álvaro, is asleep in his university lodging in Monagua. He stumbles out of bed and opens the door to find his uncle standing there. In his half-asleep state, Álvaro assumes his uncle's come to ask a favor.

That he probably wants me to write something for him or do some graphic design or something like that.

But that isn't why he's here.

He told me Frank's dead. My mind couldn't process it. That level of shock is just horrible. You feel like you're going to short circuit, like you're going to just faint or collapse.

Alvaro suddenly gripped with a panic I believed in the split second that maybe he only had the courage to tell me that Frank was dead. Maybe his uncle has more news that he just can't bring himself to share.

I want to see my mom. I want to see my mom. I just wanted my mother to be safe.

She is for now, and she's already on her way to Monagua to see him. The following evening, Maria goes to her mother-in-law's house where people are holding a vigil. Frank's body lies in an open coffin, and around the room, his siblings and friends are standing in small groups, comforting each other. Maria wants to help them prepare for the funeral, but she's completely numb.

I couldn't do anything. I was floating in the air. I was just there, but I didn't do much.

The next morning, Frank's friends and family pour into a small church. A few of Maria's childhood friends are there, too. Together, they sit through Mass. The priest talks fondly of the man he knew, kind, compassionate, funny, a man that at 44 years old had lived a happy and purposeful life, but one that had sadly been cut short. Then Frank is laid to rest. His coffin piled high with red flowers. When it's over, Maria leaves. She travels 2 hours north to her father's home in Chinandega. She simply can't go back to that sweet little yellow house on the hill she shared with Frank in Bluefields, the house where he was murdered. She needs to escape.

I wasn't able to live there anymore. I felt so threatened. I was afraid because these people got into my house.

And Maria has some theories about who these people are. Maria and Frank had a small apartment on the first floor of their house, which they sometimes rented out to lodgers. Days before Frank's murder, Maria had been sitting in her office. Three young men are at the asking about her apartment. They wanted to stay for a month. It was a normal enough request, but almost instantly, Maria had a bad feeling about one of them. The oldest of the three, a slim man, maybe in his early 30s, with a manicured mustache and a cobra tattooed on his left arm. He had a strange look in his eyes.

Like a deep sadness. It was a weird feeling that I always had.

I think we've all had those feelings where you're faced with a person or a situation and your gut just says no. A real sliding doors moment. On the one hand, there's nothing tangible to say, walk away, but on the other, an inner voice is shouting at you.

I was about to tell them that I was not going to rent the apartment to them, but then I felt like I'm crazy.

So she agreed to let them stay. What's your name? She asked the sad-looking man.

Ivan Aguello Rivera.

He told her. It meant nothing to her, but now it's a name she can't forget. When Maria found Frank, Rivera and the others had disappeared.

They never came back. They didn't come back to sleep the day after or in any other day, they just disappeared. I realized that they had been the ones who killed him.

But Maria is sure this wasn't just a burglary gone wrong. The killers didn't steal anything of value. Why leave a man dead and not even take what you came for? No, Maria is sure this is something bigger, something to do with her work on the Pearl Quays. There's been a regular stream of stories in the newspapers about the sale of the islands, the President's visit, the Gaskin's kidnapping. The controversy has been growing, and Maria's name is well known now across the whole country for her work defending Indigenous rights. Now, Frank has been murdered, and Maria's sure it's no coincidence. There must be a connection. She just has to find a way to prove it. I'm Afwa Hush. I'm Peter Frankerpern. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history.

This season, we're exploring the life of Cleopatra.

An iconic life full of romances, seages, and tragedy. But who was the real Cleopatra? It feels like her story has been told by others with their own agenda for centuries.

But her legacy is enduring, and so we're going to dive into how her story has evolved all the way up to today.

I am so excited to talk about Cleopatra, Peter. Love Cleopatra. She is an icon. She's the most famous woman in antiquity. It's got to be up there with the most famous woman of all But I think there's a huge gap between how familiar people are with the idea of her compared to what they actually know about her life and character. So for Pyramids, Cleopatra and Cleopatra's Nose. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts or you can binge entire seasons early and ad-free on WNDYRI Plus. I'm Alice Labine. I'm Matt Ford. And we're the presenters of British Scandal. And in our latest series, Hitler's Angel, we tell the story of scandalous beauty, Diana Moseley, British aristocrat, Mitford Sister, and fascist sympathizer. Like so many great British stories, it starts at a lavish garden party. Diana meets the dashing fascist, Oswald Moseley. She's captivated by his politics, but also by his very good looks. It's not a classic rom-com story, but when she falls in love with Moseley, she's on a collision course with her family, her friends, and her whole country. There is some romance, though. The couple tied the knot in a ceremony organized by a great uncelebrated wedding planner, Adolf Hitler.

It's less Notting Hill, more Nuremberg. When Britain took on the Nazis, Diana had to choose between love or betrayer. This is the story of Diana Moseley on her journey from glamorous socialite to political prisoner.

Listen to British Scandal on the WNDYRI app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I remember saying that Maria and Jane couldn't be more different. Chalk and cheese, in fact. But now, sadly, there are major parallels between them. Both their husbands, Frank and Phil, have died out of the blue in their early 40s. Both of them are mourning the loss of not only their husbands, but the father figures in their children's lives, stepdads who had really stepped up. And they Both have to find a way to pick up the pieces and carry on. Back in Bluefield, there'd been another funeral to organize, too. Phil's. Since his death, the Gaskins have also been left in shock. Jane had expected him to make a full recovery. It felt so sudden. Despite all their squabbles, it's clear to producer Billy that Jane adored Phil.

I I felt very sad for Jane because I know that she really loved him. Sometimes she didn't show it, but she did. And I felt really sorry for the kids as well because they were very close to him as well, and he had a very good relationship with them.

This was a smaller, more unconventional send-off. Jane's chosen a place Phil liked by a small bay at the edge of the rainforest, a spot Phil always found peaceful and serene. No black suits here. The kids are in their bright beach wear, and Jane's wearing her pink silk bustier. They gather around the open satin-lined coffin, taking turns to lay a memento on Phil's body. One of the boys places his favorite Pokémon card inside Phil's khaki shirt pocket. Jane tucks a photo of the family under his hands, along with a handkerchief sprayed with her favorite perfume, vanilla.

Jane was heartbroken. She told me that Phil was the only man that she'd ever really loved.

Jane delivers a short eulogy. She'll never meet anyone else like Phil, she says. After only a few weeks living in a temporary apartment in Bluefields following Phil's funeral, Jane decides it's time for her and the children to go back to Janique. If I didn't know better, I'd think this island had some holdover Jane. Her dog had determination to keep returning. It just leaves me a gog. With everything that she's had thrown at her, I would run for the hills, or at least, as discussed, the Seychelles. But no. Jane's aware she's been getting a terrible press back home. But despite this, in a move that no doubt shocked many, she agrees to let channel 4 accompany the family back to the island to film a follow-up. No going back. Return to Nicaragua. For Billy, who didn't expect to be back after just a few months, or perhaps ever, the return feels full of sadness.

This only seemed a little bit of a gaping hole back on the island without Bill, who'd been such a constant there. He was always joking, and he was always making the best of things, even though he wasn't that happy.

Billy enjoyed Phil's company and how hard he worked to protect his family. But now he was beginning to see new two sides of Jane's character.

In the circumstances, she was pretty strong and pragmatic, getting on with what was in front of her. Like a lot of strong, driven women, she had a hard protective skin that was never quite easy to get under. She threw this protective skin around her to stop her falling apart.

Amid all the protests and legal battles, Jane and Phil had put the dive resort on pause and let most of their staff go. Now with Phil gone, too, Jane needs some help. She invites their new friend Steve over to the island, or snake man Steve, as everyone knows him. I'll let you guess why that's his nickname. Come on, he just breeds reptiles.

Steve looked like straight out of central casting. He was rugged, weatherbeaten.

No, Billy, be honest. Say how you really feel.

An old hippie with a ponytail, chain smoker, raspy voice.

Jane and Phil had met snake man Steve a few months earlier, and as expats abroad, they soon hit it off. After Phil passed away, Steve agreed to let Jane lay Phil's body to rest in a tomb on his farm in a little bay by the rainforest. And in an eerie foreshadowing, over the days leading up to his death, Phil had made Steve promise to look after Jane and the kids if anything happened to him. He's certainly sticking to his word, but Billy can't quite figure Steve out.

Steve was very laid back. It wasn't fazed by anything. I couldn't place his American accent, and he never told us where exactly he came from. They used to joke that he was ex CIA, ex Black Ops. I did ask him, but he just laughed and shook his head. From an outsider's view, he could well have been.

Steve actually reminds Billy a little of Phil, who definitely wasn't ex-CIA.

Strangely enough, they weren't dissimilar. They were great raconteurs, told stories, whether they were true or not. But they made you laugh and liked to shoot the breeze. So that was an odd sensation seeing Steve sitting in Phil's chair, shooting the breeze, smoking, just like Phil had.

Maybe Jane sees the similarities, too, because briefly, her and snake man Steve have a go at being more than just friends, if you know what I mean. But Steve can't fix the void Phil's death left, and the romance is short-lived. Instead, he becomes a companion, sleeping in what was the worker's quarters whenever he visits Janique.

There was no doubt that Phil had been Jane's big love of her life and had played a huge part of her, her existence distant. So Steve was never going to match that.

He was never going to match Phil's prouess in the bedroom, is what Jane tells the channel 4 cameras, with characteristic candor. Quite the tribute, I think. But Steve is a reassuring presence on the island. He patiently teaches the children how to catch, fill it, and fry a red snapper. He's a useful guy to have around. Jane has also hired a couple of new staff, armed guards, to help them all feel safer. And now the family are slowly rediscovering the simple island life that Jane's been fighting for all along. There's a sense of a new chapter just beginning, one in which Jane is the main character and author of her own destiny. But with the new dive center on hold, Jane needs income and fast, so she finds work designing holiday cabanas for the new British owner of a neighboring island. She'd like to paint all of the bedrooms pink. If they'll let her, I really hope they don't. But unbeknownst to Jane, back in England, another media storm is about to break. Someone from her past is preparing a surprise entrance, and she's not going to like it. April 2002, Bluefields. It's a week after Frank's murder, and Maria climbs the stairs to their yellow house on the hill.

She's brought her brother to help her pack up her stuff. It's a job she's dreading, but it's got to be done. She pauses a moment, then pushes open the front door and steps inside. This had been their dream house. They'd been living here together for seven years. But now, Maria doesn't feel like she belongs here anymore, not without Frank. She can see her answering machine is backed up with messages. She begins to play through them. Message after message of sympathy, condolences, offers of help. But then...

There was one different phone call The man doesn't identify himself, but he tells Maria he's been reading about her case in the newspaper.

He knows Ivan Ageo Rivera, one of the lojas Maria believes killed Frank, and he has information. The caller leaves their number. Maria freezes, and before she can think clearly, punches in the digits. Hello? Maria tells the man she received his message. Marriage.

And I ask him, Why you want to help me?

And the man on the other end of the line tells her why. Frank's killer has killed before.

And he said, Well, this man killed a friend of mine, and I couldn't do anything. But I know you can do something about your husband killing, and I'm going to help you.

He says he's been keeping tabs on Rivera, and he might know how to find him.

Listening to this man was like a little light at the end of the tunnel.

Maria doesn't know if she can trust this stranger, but she's willing to take all the help she can get. Meanwhile, Frank's death has sent shockwaves through Bluefields.

Frank dying had a big impact on the community. He was a nice person.

He became like family.

So we really felt the impact when he passed away. And the way he passed away, it was a shock.

All of the local people, like Jerry, who were involved in the island dispute, were beginning to fear for their lives. I remember hearing about Frank's murder on the radio. It was breaking news. There was so much commotion. People wanted answers. Alejandrina is another community leader, fighting alongside Maria for the rights of indigenous people, and they all rallied together to put their arms around Maria. Everybody rushed to help Ms. Acosta and to comfort her. I remember a huge crowd gathered outside her home. To safeguard Jerry and Alejandrina's identities, we've changed their names and asked actors to read their words because this is the moment when Nicaragua suddenly felt like a deadly place for campaigners. It was very hard for us because everyone felt that whoever killed Frank was sending a warning to the entire community. If you continue demanding your rights, more people will be murdered.

When Frank's death happened, a lot of people were scared, but at the same time, a lot of people joined the fight to support the cause.

Suddenly, this local battle over a set of tiny islands began to blow up. It didn't only affect Pearl Lagoon, but the entire South Caribbean Coast, because that's how much influence Maria Acosta had. It made people think, how many people must we lose in this process? Is it a land struggle or is it a war? If it's a war, it's one that Maria is committed to winning. Now it's not just the local community she's fighting for. She needs to get justice for Frank. So it's time to give her evidence to the court. Inside a large echoey hall at Bluefield's Criminal Courthouse, Maria sits down on a hard wooden chair and looks at the man standing opposite her, Judge Acuña Cambreñero. With his jet black hair and thick mustache, he's a large presence that's familiar to Maria from her work on previous cases. But now she's been summoned to give a statement about her own husband's murder, and she's got plenty of things she wants to say. A secretary is perched at the edge of the desk, ready to transcribe Maria's every word as she starts to recount what happened. The judge already knows about the loggers, about Rivera, But Maria has other theories she wants to share.

I told the judge what I thought. I thought, and I still think, and I'm sure of it, that this killing wasn't meant for Frank.

She was the intended target, she tells him.

They were paid to kill me. And since I wasn't home, and they wanted their money, and they got desperate, they killed my husband.

A hired hitman But who would want Maria dead?

I told the judge that the only people that I suspected was Martínez and Socoros because of the Berkis case.

The two Peters. Peter Socos, the businessman who sold the islands, and Peter Martinez, his lawyer. The names trigger an unexpected reaction.

The judge got so upset, and he shouted me, and he said, What are you saying? And I said, I'm saying what I feel. I say what I think. I say what I have the right to say, and you should investigate them.

Maria is stunned by the judge's reply, but she carries on. Maria tells him she has information on Rivera from the man who left her a voicemail, the mystery caller who's been feeding her updates on Rivera's location.

He looked at me and said, Why don't you catch him? Or something like that. I said, Because this is not my duty. This is the police and your duty to do Not me. I give it all the information I have to the police, but that's not my role.

It's blood boiling. It's crazy-making. And it's also very, very strange. It feels to Maria like the judge is ignoring her evidence. But after everything that's happened recently, today, Maria doesn't have the energy to argue back. She's tired, and she has an old life to pack away into boxes. So she calmly picks up her bag and leaves. Back at her house on the hill, Maria is finishing wrapping the last few delicate monuments in paper, trying to pack away all the memories that keep coming back. A police escort has been assigned to keep her safe. He stands in the corner watching as Maria moves her attention to a stack of documents, which she's carefully piling into boxes when... Maria peers over the edge of the balcony to see who it is. Below, Judge Cambraniero is stiffly getting out of a car, and then on the other side, out steps a familiar figure in a green polo shirt and Puma baseball cap. Peter Martínez.

It was very violent for me to see Martinez again and to see him coming together with the judge.

The judge has come to see the crime scene. She can hardly tell him to leave. But why on earth has he come with Martinez, one of her prime suspects? She stands there, fixed to the spot, as the two men walk up the stairs towards the front door.

I felt so upset. I felt threatened. I felt vulnerable.

Maria stares at Martínez as he enters her house, Frank's house. I have a legal right to be here, he tells her as he crosses the threshold.

I look at Martínez's eyes and I told him, Even if you get away with this, you won't get away with this crime through God's eyes. And he looked at the judge and he said, This woman is threatening me.

Judge Cambraniero tells Maria to stop. If she's not careful, he could detain her for harassment.

I was like, I can't believe the both of you. And I just left them Because at that moment, the judge could have put me in jail for that.

Amid all the shock and the grief, Maria suddenly feels powerless. Her whole career, she's been defending people, helping them fight for justice. But now she finds herself in a new position as the victim of a crime, and she's got no one to turn to, no one to help defend her.

I felt like I was left alone, and there was not going to be justice.

On the next episode of The Price of Paradise, Maria receives a phone call from the last person she expected.

I said, Hello, and I listened to a voice that said, I am the man who was in your house the day of the assassination. I said, Rivera? He said, Yes. He began to talk.

Back in London, the TV team takes another surprise call from Phil Gaskin.

There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. This guy shouldn't exist. That guy's dead. He's in a tomb. I know he's in a tomb.

Follow the Price of Paradise on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can Change all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining WNDYRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wundry. Com/survey. From WNDYRI, this is episode 5 of 7 of The Price of Paradise. A note about this podcast. Not everything was captured on film at the time, so we can't always know exactly what was said in every moment. In places, our script is based on the testimony of our interviewees and all other sources available to us. The Price of Paradise is produced by Forest Sounds and is hosted with additional writing by me, Alice Levine. For Forest Sounds, our producers are Ella Cattle and Aaron Keller. The Assistant Producer is Valeria Rocca. The Managing Producer is Anne Fitzgerald. The Production Coordinator is Nina Abdullah. The researcher is Tom Cass. Executive producers are Pete Sayle and Jeremy Lee. For WNDRI, our producer is Theodora Louloudis. Our managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Our consulting producer is Brian Taylor-White. The production assistant is Imogen Marshall. Music composition by Ian Chambers.

Sound design by Joe Richardson and Ian Chambers. Our sound supervisor is Marcelino V. Alpando. The music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frissonsing. Executive producers for WNDRI are Michelle Martin, Jessica Radburn, Marshall Louis, and Jenn Sargent. Wndri.