DEVIL’S ISLAND
…
Then they nearly stopped.
For Michelle, that silence set off an instinct she could not ignore.
Yvonne did not just vanish from people’s lives.
She did not let weeks pass without reaching out.
Something about the silence felt wrong.
Two weeks passed.
Then, on December 14, Michelle received a text message from a number she did not recognize.
It was not from Yvonne.
It was from Brian.
The message was casual and shocking.
Brian asked whether he could make arrangements to pick up his truck.
Michelle froze.
Brian was back in the United States.
Her first thought was not about the truck.
It was about her sister.
She called the number immediately and asked where Yvonne was.
Brian acted as though Michelle should already know.
He asked whether she had received his email.
Michelle had not seen any email from him.
After hanging up, she went to her computer and searched.
There it was.
An email from Brian, who had never written to her before.
He said he was sure Michelle had heard by now that he and Yvonne were no longer together.
Michelle called him right back.
She wanted to know what happened.
Brian told her that he and Yvonne had gotten into a fight because she discovered he had a child with another woman.
That other woman was Kristen Werkhoven.
Kristen worked in Washington, D.
C.
, and had met Brian while he was still connected to the world of military and government circles.
In 2010, she had given birth to Brian’s baby girl.
For Yvonne, that revelation would have been devastating.
Because of a medical condition, she could not have children.
Her family knew that all Yvonne had ever wanted was to be a mother.
To discover that Brian had fathered a child with another woman and hidden it from her would have shattered her.
Brian claimed that after learning the truth, Yvonne left him.
Michelle pressed him.
Did Yvonne leave a note?
No.
Had she called him since?
No.
Did he know where she was?
No.
Brian simply said he was sure she was fine.
Michelle did not believe him.
Ten days later, Brian called again because he still wanted to pick up his truck.
This time, Michelle told him she had another plan.
She said he could come get the truck, but that he should go with her to the police department because he was the last person to see Yvonne.
They needed to file a missing person’s report.
By then it was mid-December.
Yvonne had not contacted her family.
Something was wrong.
As Michelle searched for answers, she found another email she had overlooked.
This one appeared to be from Yvonne.
The message said that Yvonne and Brian were no longer together.
It said she should have trusted her instincts that Brian was a lying, cheating man.
It said she was heading to Costa Rica with a man she had met when she and Brian first arrived in Bocas.
Michelle did not know what to think.
Parts of the email sounded plausible.
Yvonne was heartbroken.
She had discovered Brian’s betrayal.
Maybe she had snapped emotionally and run off.
But other parts felt strange.
The wording did not feel entirely like her sister.
The decision to run off to Costa Rica with a barely known man made little sense.
In upstate New York, Yvonne’s father Jim and stepmother Lillian had the same reaction.
The story did not fit Yvonne.
For her life to change so abruptly, for her to suddenly abandon everyone and head off with a stranger to Costa Rica, made no sense.
Then another email arrived.
It claimed Yvonne was getting homesick and working on plans to come home as early as the second week of January.
She wrote that she had been living with “cliffhangers” for a while and signed off with love.
The message reassured the family just enough.
Michelle thought that if Yvonne planned to return in January, maybe she would appear at the upcoming family gathering.
She was still worried, but for the moment, she allowed herself to believe her sister might be safe.
That same day, Brian arrived at Michelle’s home in Los Angeles to pick up his truck.
His demeanor struck her.
He seemed calm, brief, businesslike, and in a hurry.
He came to get his belongings, get the truck, and leave.
After Brian picked up the truck, Yvonne’s emails stopped again.
Sixteen long days passed.
On January 6, 2012, Michelle wrote to her sister with the subject line “worried.
” She said she just wanted to make sure Yvonne had not been kidnapped or that someone was not pretending to be her.
She even joked that maybe she had watched too many episodes of 48 Hours.
Yvonne never replied.
That was the last email Michelle ever sent expecting an answer from her sister.
When Yvonne failed to appear at the family reunion, Jim Faust knew something was terribly wrong.
He told Michelle that Yvonne had not left Panama.
It was a feeling, but it was strong.
Michelle was now convinced that her sister had never run off to Costa Rica.
She decided to find out where the suspicious emails had really come from.
She contacted a cousin who understood technology.
He told her that tracking the emails should be possible if they could examine the IP addresses.
He reviewed the emails that supposedly came from Panama and Costa Rica.
He also reviewed the email Brian had sent from near Dana Point, California.
The discovery changed everything.
Emails that were supposed to show Yvonne in Costa Rica had actually originated in the United States.
One appeared to come from Dana Point, the area where Brian was living.
Michelle understood what that meant.
Yvonne’s email had been accessed from Brian’s location.
It appeared Brian had hacked into Yvonne’s email account and impersonated her.
The question was why.
For Michelle, the answer was immediate and unbearable.
If Brian was pretending to be Yvonne, then Yvonne was not alive.
Michelle later said that was the moment she knew.
It was murder.
Her sister was dead, and she was never going to see her again.
But Michelle did not stop.
She gathered the evidence and brought it to the FBI, where she met Special Agent Andrew Masters.
Masters immediately recognized Michelle as a force.
He called her a spitfire.
When the family brought the email evidence to the FBI, agents knew they were no longer dealing with a simple missing-person case.
There was foul play.
The FBI launched an investigation into Yvonne’s disappearance, with Masters taking charge.
The family also contacted the State Department and the U.
S.
Embassy.
The answer confirmed their fears.
There was no record of Yvonne ever leaving Panama.
There was no record of her entering Costa Rica.
Yvonne’s family could not wait any longer.
They went to Panama to search for answers themselves.
At the same time, the FBI began targeting Brian Brimager as a person of interest.
Brian did not yet understand what the FBI was capable of uncovering.
In Panama, Yvonne’s family met with Don Winner, a former U.
S.
intelligence officer and well-known investigator with a reputation for solving difficult cases.
Winner had helped expose and solve multiple major crimes in Panama, and when Americans got into trouble there, people often called him.
Jim and Lillian told Winner about Yvonne’s disappearance and Brian’s claim that she had left with another man.
Winner did not believe it.
He said the chances that Yvonne was running around Costa Rica with some other man were almost zero.
He believed Brian was involved.
Winner’s strategy was direct.
He wanted to put pressure on the Panamanian government to act.
His plan also included having Jim and Michelle provide blood samples for DNA testing in case remains were found.
The family traveled hundreds of miles from Panama City to the island where Yvonne had disappeared.
Panamanian police were persuaded to hold a press conference and plead for information.
For the first time, Panamanian authorities publicly announced that Yvonne was likely the victim of foul play and named Brian Brimager as a suspect.
The news spread quickly.
Reports noted that within weeks of Yvonne’s disappearance, Brian had returned to the United States, gotten engaged, and married another woman.
The family printed flyers and went through neighborhoods and villages looking for clues.
Yvonne’s niece, Lauren Byer, joined the search.
It was heartbreaking for her to walk through a place that had once sounded like paradise but now felt like a nightmare.
The effort began to produce results.
Witnesses who had known Brian and Yvonne started coming forward.
They described verbal and physical abuse.
One local bar owner, Jeff Salzman, recalled seeing injuries on Yvonne’s face.
He remembered black eyes, dark bruising, and the way she seemed to hide the marks and avoid talking about them.
For Yvonne’s family, hearing those stories was painful.
They learned that Brian had hit her.
They learned she had bruises.
They learned she had been suffering while her emails home had painted a much happier picture.
The realization settled in.
Yvonne might have been murdered on that island.
But finding her would be almost impossible.
The water stretched for miles.
The jungle was dense.
Just a few yards inland from the shoreline, the terrain became swampy, insect-filled, and nearly impenetrable.
Searchers pushed through mud, spiders, snakes, rancid water, and thick vegetation.
Every small discovery raised hope and fear.
A purse.
A medicine bottle.
A mysterious sinkhole.
A passport.
None belonged to Yvonne.
Back in the United States, the FBI confronted Brian.
Special Agent Andrew Masters and another agent went to Brian’s apartment for what they described as a consensual monitored interview.
Brian answered the door and invited them inside.
He said he had been expecting them.
The agents questioned him for more than four hours while he babysat his young daughter.
They did not know whether he might break down and confess, become angry, or throw them out.
Brian stayed with his story.
He said he came home and found a note from Yvonne.
According to him, the note said she was going to Costa Rica with a man she had been talking to.
But when agents confronted him with Michelle’s email evidence, Brian began to stumble.
Masters explained that the IP addresses were not coming from Costa Rica.
They were coming from near Brian.
If Yvonne was not there, then someone else had sent those emails.
Brian claimed he did not know anyone who would have had her email account.
Then Masters noticed something in the apartment.
A white Sony Vaio laptop.
Investigators knew Yvonne owned a white Sony Vaio and had taken it with her to Panama.
Masters immediately suspected they were looking at Yvonne’s computer.
He was right.
The laptop belonged to Yvonne.
And it would become one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case.
Even under FBI scrutiny, Brian remained free for a time.
He lived with Kristen and their child near San Diego.
Kristen worked for a defense contractor, while Brian, unemployed, spent much of his time golfing.
Michelle later watched video of him living that comfortable new life.
She was not surprised anymore.
By then, she believed she knew what he was capable of.
To her, he was a man who had killed her sister and thought he could walk away.
CBS News correspondent Peter Van Sant later confronted Brian publicly as he headed out with golf clubs.
He asked whether Brian had murdered Yvonne Baldelli.
Brian said nothing.
He would not answer questions.
The FBI continued to dismantle his story piece by piece.
Agents interviewed everyone connected to him, including Kristen.
They learned that Brian had lied to her too.
Kristen had believed he went to Panama to decompress after leaving the Marines and that he had gone with Marine Corps friends.
She did not even know Yvonne existed.
Brian had built one lie on top of another.
Despite that, Kristen continued to stand by him.
According to her, Brian was the greatest thing that had ever happened to anyone.
She did not want to discuss that belief publicly.
As Agent Masters traveled repeatedly to Panama, a different portrait of Brian emerged.
Witnesses described domestic violence.
They spoke of choking, dragging, berating, and public humiliation.
The relationship had not been the paradise Yvonne described in emails.
Masters became convinced that Brian and Yvonne had a violent fight on November 26, 2011, after she learned that he had fathered a child with Kristen.
The argument likely escalated.
At some point, Masters believed, Brian decided he was done with Yvonne and killed her.
The evidence on Yvonne’s laptop strengthened that conclusion.
About two weeks before her murder, Yvonne had taken a disturbing selfie.
The photo showed a massive black eye on her left side and swelling in her cheek.
In that way, even after death, Yvonne helped investigators tell the truth.
There was more.
Forensic work revealed internet searches for how to remove blood from a mattress.
Those searches were made the morning after investigators believed Yvonne was killed.
In Costa Rica, investigators uncovered ATM images showing Brian withdrawing cash from Yvonne’s account.
Masters had no doubt Brian used Yvonne’s laptop to send fake emails to her family.
Investigators and journalists tried confronting Brian again.
He was asked how Yvonne’s supposed email from Costa Rica had actually been sent from California.
He was asked whether he knew she was dead when that email was sent.
He did not answer.
He never answered.
Yvonne’s dog, Georgia Mae, had also vanished.
Don Winner believed that Brian had disposed of the dog too.
Yvonne loved Georgia Mae, and if the dog had been seen running loose after Yvonne supposedly left with another man, everyone would have known the story was false.
Winner also uncovered a disturbing clue on Brian’s Facebook page.
After Yvonne disappeared, Brian had sold a machete.
He had brought it with him from the United States to Panama.
According to Winner, Brian made a chilling remark about the knife, joking that he had only used it to chop up one stripper.
The comment was horrifying.
Agent Masters needed the machete.
Incredibly, investigators tracked down the person who bought it from Brian in Panama.
The machete was heavy, weighted, and capable of inflicting terrible damage.
Investigators now had the emails, the laptop, the ATM evidence, the abuse accounts, the suspicious searches, and the machete.
Still, the most important evidence had not yet been found.
In the summer of 2013, nearly two years after Yvonne vanished, the final chapter began to unfold.
On June 26, 2013, FBI agents arrested Brian Brimager.
Agent Masters told him he was under arrest and ordered him to turn around and put his hands behind his back.
When Michelle learned the news, she received a text from her father saying they had caught the man responsible.
She sat down and felt relief.
For the first time, authorities believed them.
Brian was charged with thirteen felonies related to the cover-up of Yvonne’s death.
But he was not yet charged with murder.
Assistant U.
S.
Attorneys Shane Harrigan and Mark Conover led the prosecution.
At that point, without a body, they did not believe they had enough evidence to bring a murder charge.
Then the case changed again.
Human remains were found on the Panamanian island where Brian and Yvonne had lived.
A local worker clearing brush came upon a duffel bag.
When he opened it, he discovered skeletal remains.
DNA testing confirmed they belonged to Yvonne Baldelli.
She had been found only a few hundred yards from where her family had searched.
The discovery was both devastating and crucial.
Michelle wanted to be told personally.
When she heard there was a possibility the remains were Yvonne’s, her first reaction was not only grief.
She also felt that now they could finally nail Brian.
An autopsy confirmed the terrible truth.
Yvonne had been dismembered.
Investigators believed the most likely cause of death was being stabbed in the back at least twice.
Despite overwhelming evidence and proof that Brian had repeatedly lied, Kristen continued to support him.
Then another tragedy struck Yvonne’s family.
In the spring of 2014, Michelle, who had dedicated herself to finding justice for her sister, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
Even as she fought for her own life, she kept fighting for Yvonne.
She said she was still alive to fight for herself and still alive to fight for her sister.
By late 2014, Michelle was gravely ill.
Given only weeks to live, she agreed to provide a deposition while she still could.
Brian would be sitting directly across from her.
Michelle tried to ignore him as best she could.
When asked to identify him in the courtroom, she pointed him out and described where he was seated.
Even then, she could not resist a sharp remark about his outfit.
After the exhausting testimony, Michelle passed out.
It was a courageous act of love for her sister.
She knew it might be the last thing she could do for Yvonne.
Because it was recorded, her words would remain forever.
Days later, Michelle died.
It took years of diplomatic and legal maneuvering, but in early 2015, the government of Panama agreed to allow Brian to be tried for murder in the United States.
Prosecutors concluded that the only realistic way for Brian to face justice was for him to be charged and convicted on American soil.
Brian pleaded not guilty.
The case was heading for trial in 2016 when investigators made another dramatic discovery.
Yvonne’s blood and DNA were found under the handle of the machete.
The blade had been cleaned, but Brian had not cleaned beneath the handle.
When investigators removed the screws and opened it, they found blood inside.
It was Yvonne’s.
For prosecutors, that evidence changed everything.
The machete had likely been used to dismember her.
The discovery made it clear that Brian would not be able to lie his way out.
Within a week, Brian Brimager pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.
The remaining charges were dropped as part of the plea.
At sentencing, after nearly five years of lies, Brian finally admitted he had killed Yvonne Baldelli.
To Yvonne’s family, the apology he offered in court sounded hollow.
They saw him as a con artist.
He had fooled Yvonne.
He had fooled Kristen.
He had fooled Kristen’s family.
He had lived a double life, maybe even a triple life, and relied on people believing the image he presented.
But his actions revealed who he truly was.
Brian was sentenced to twenty-six years in federal prison.
When the case was finally over, Yvonne’s remains were returned to her family and laid to rest at sea.
For her family, that mattered.
They could finally give her a dignified resting place.
They no longer had to imagine her abandoned in a jungle or lost in the ocean.
They knew she loved the water, and placing her in the ocean gave them some comfort.
They had brought her home.
In a way, two women were honored that day.
Yvonne Baldelli, whose life had been stolen.
And Michelle Valenzuela, the sister who battled a Marine to the end and won.
Michelle never gave up.
To her dying day, she gave everything she had.
Kristen and Brian Brimager remained married.
She continued to support and visit him in federal prison.
His prison term was scheduled to end in February 2037.
The story of Yvonne Baldelli is not only a story about murder.
It is a story about image and reality.
A decorated Marine.
A tropical paradise.
A loving boyfriend.
A fresh start.
Those were the appearances.
The truth was darker.
Behind the beautiful island, the happy emails, and the public image of an honorable man was a calculated deception that stretched from Panama to California, from a fake email account to a hidden laptop, from ATM withdrawals to a bloodstained machete.
Brian Brimager believed he could control the story.
He believed he could make Yvonne disappear and replace her voice with emails he wrote himself.
He believed he could return to California, marry another woman, raise a child, play golf, and move on.
But he did not count on Michelle.
He did not count on a family that refused to accept his lies.
He did not count on investigators who could trace the digital trail.
He did not count on witnesses who would finally speak.
And he did not count on the evidence he failed to clean beneath the handle of a machete.
In the end, Yvonne’s voice survived through the people who loved her.
Her emails stopped.
Her phone went silent.
Her body was hidden.
But the truth did not stay buried.
On an island that once promised paradise, a terrible crime was exposed.
And the woman who vanished from Panama was finally brought home.
