(upbeat music)
- This is a CBC podcast. - Gracias, it's good.
The word that you wanna hear the most is Buddha Bita.
- So just pure vida, and that's okay to say that. - Yeah, of course, everybody is for Gracias, Ola, Chaltho. - Pure vida, pure vida. - Costa Rica, tiny, lush, rich and species,
and filled with expat Canadians trying to find a pure life. - It's really exciting to think, you know, they're in their forties at the time and able to retire to Costa Rica.
- But sometimes the escape can become something else entirely.
“- I think she was in a situation where it was just too much”
for her to keep going. I came out of shower, dry myself, and I look, she was not there. - Her engagement ring was there, and her phone. - From CBC podcasts, I'm David Ridgen,
and this is someone who knows something, season 10. - I actually met Jacqueline on a couple of boat trips. Very quiet, girl, but super nice. - Jacqueline Furlin Smith, a 40-year-old former Canadian military trainer,
moves to Costa Rica to follow her dreams and find some peace with her husband. - Yes, she was beautiful, she was intelligent. If she had no stress and or doing great, she would be the best wife ever.
- But in the summer of 2021, while living in the close-knit tourist beach town of Playa del Coco, Jackie vanishes without a trace.
- She'd never grow in the dark, and I'm not taking her own car.
- Jackie would do that. - For the first year after this happened, I was kind of a mess because how can a woman just go missing and us put out all that effort to find her, and she's still missing.
It just doesn't compute to my brain. - Where did Jackie go? - Man or woman, he said only that was somebody in the back of the vaccine. - What do people know?
- Yeah, but you know who I'm talking about, the woman that disappeared, the Canadian woman? - I remember the young woman that I can see in the picture of everything, yeah? - I saw her and it was quite awkward
because it was the first time I ever saw her
without a smile.
“- You can disappear pretty easily, I guess, if you want to.”
- And what's been happening with Jackie's case four years later, and so far from home? - No, I'm not saying I'm gonna do it, or they pick up her. - She's saying that it's not possible to talk about this case.
You'd have to go straight through his boss. - A mothballed investigation and desperate family. - Well, you feel fine, and then you start talking, and I'll send it just home. Comes out, sorry.
- A community of expats and locals who want answers. - The guys from my heart that like a week later came and I was really pissed because nobody had fainted the house a week later, it's supposed to like happen the same day. - And a husband who knows that many eyes are on him.
- We all are those things, right? Like if you want to know the gift you person look for like the closest to them or look at the husband, right? Like all those stereotypes. I just said the facts and what happened.
I did not kill her, or have you see, yes? So, but who am I to convince anyone? - I traveled to Costa Rica to investigate a Canadian case.
“I think she just walked away, like this is what they were saying.”
That she just walked away, no way. - Oh, wait. - And Northwest, our pilot, Faza. Your destination will be on the left. - Check, check.
- All right, here we go. - I'm David Ridgen, and this is someone who knows something, season 10, the Jacqueline Firlen Smith case. Coming soon. For early access to ad-free episodes,
subscribe to the CBC True Crime Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. - And then next time, he comes by, I go with the shotgun again. And I knock on the door.
And I tell him what the fucker I see you're close to my house of fucking kill you. (bell ringing) For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.
