THE BALMER MURDER CASE

Time for me to go back a few years to bring up a bit of an update on the David Balmer murder case.  I have just received information that John Santos was finally sentenced to 8 years in jail.  Who is John Santos?  He was the Filipino who drove the car for murder suspects Tim Kaufman and Joe Tramatano.  He ended up being a key witness in the case for the Prosecution.  Unfortunately, there was never a prosecution.  Tim Kaufman (American) was extradited from the US and put in the City jail awaiting trial.  Regretfully he died in jail by taking taking some sort of medicine that he had put together himself.  He claimed he was innocent of the crime but never made it to trial.  His accomplice, Joe (American) was able to skip the country after attending the funeral of Balmer and his girlfriend.  The were both shot to death as they were sleeping at David’s house early in the morning.  It was a horrible murder and many questions as to motive and who else was involved still exist.  Joe has been reported to have been seen in Thailand and Cambodia over the years but the trail has gone cold.  He is wanted by the FBI and Interpol but by now no agency appears to be actively searching for him.  We can only hope that he might make a mistake some time in the future and will be caught.  It will be a shame if John Santos is the only person paying the price for this murder.  It is also a shame that Tim Kaufman never went to trial and could not defend himself.  Too many questions.

It is sort of like the many questions about what happened to Lewis, the owner of the Lewis Grand Hotel.  Just like magic, he disappeared, never to be seen again.  Lots of theories, lots of questions.  The local police never exerted too much effort on this case.  His name crops up off and on in local conversation from those who knew him and the question is always the same “Gee, what happened to Lewis”, a question never to be answered??