Two men have been arrested on charges of killing a New Zealand man on his 65-foot cruising boat off the Caribbean coast of Panama and slashing his wife with a machete before stealing the boat’s outboard motor. A third person, a minor, also was held in the murder.
Alan and Derryn Culverwell had sold their home on the South Island of New Zealand so they could spend time cruising with their two children. They bought a 65-foot powerboat in Florida and were cruising back home. It’s not clear whether they were anchored out or at a dock, but the murder took place in Guna Yale, a cluster of islands in Panama.
Late at night Culverwell, 60, a former paua (abalone) diver in New Zealand, woke up when heard a noise on deck. He went up to investigate and the men shot him at short range with a shotgun. In the following struggle, they also slashed his wife, Derryn, a former school teacher, in the shoulder with a machete, and hit their daughter, Briar, 11, on the head. Their son Flynn was not injured.
Derryn locked herself and the children inside the cabin where she was able to reach friends in New Zealand on a phone. They called New Zealand police; shortly Interpol and the Panama authorities were involved as well. Juan Carlos Varela, the president of Panama, went on TV there to apologize to the family. Read more:
