Jeff Dunsavage's Blog (589)

Here is the link to the story in the Amandala newspaper website. Please read it and, if you can be of assistance, contact the family at the phone numbers provided in the article.

http://www.amandala.com.bz/index.php?id=9840

I will try to keep everyone posted.

Mexican investigators have ended a search in a tiny tourist town for a California family, marking another dead end in an investigation that began three months ago when the family disappeared. Baja California state police said Thursday that seven investigators searched over three days for Joseph and Summer McStay and their two young boys after an FBI alert of a possible sighting in El Rosario, 200 miles south of the border. The McStays were last heard from Feb. 4. They left their dogs hungry…

A-freakin'-mazing! This is the U.S. Embassy's page about safety in Costa Rica. Not a mention of the disappearances and murders over the past year. Here's the kind of thing the Embassy warns about:

• A tire of a rental car went flat, and people who stopped to "help change the tire" stole U.S. passports, bags, cash, and camera.
• A hotel room was broken into during the day, and items the tourist had hidden were…

I didn't know about this when I put up my earlier post:

"Luca Pagliaro: Dive master from Roatan missing!! who has seen him??

Luca, an italian native, has disappeared in Roatan (Honduras) last week, probably on 16th March 2010, with Mauriliuo Mirabella, owner of a diveshop who has also disapperead.

Everybody who has news about him that are useful to find him are invited to contact me and my mother without hesitation.

Please let me know also when is the…

On Mother's Day 2009, my brother disappeared after leaving the beach on the West End of Isla de Roatan, Honduras. I didn't know at the time that a month earlier, almost to the day, Ron Scheepstra had disappeared from Xcalak, Mexico, a remote village on the Yucatan Peninsula close enough to Roatan for Ron and his fishing buddies to be using Roatan tide charts. Over the next few months, more men would disappear in Central America and the Caribbean: Alex Humphrey, in Panama; David Gimelfarb in…

This story goes back to 2008 (I would love to know if there are similar, more recent examples) and is a great demonstration of how timely, thoughtful use of our increasingly mobile social media can prevent a disappearance or, at the very least, leave a trail for investigators to follow. James Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and…

16-year-old Amy Vargas, who disappeared in Cancun Jan. 30, has been found safe and returned to her family, according to the FBI. Apparently the teenager left the hotel where she was staying…