The Missing Americans Project

Looking for People and Answers

All Blog Posts Tagged 'Joe Dunsavage' (18)

Why Are Men Disappearing in Latin America and the Caribbean? And Why Does No One in Authority Seem to Care?

The recent disappearances of high-school valedictorian August Reiger in Baños, Ecuador, andArmando Torres, a U.S. Marine, in Matamoros, Mexico, have begun bringing attention to an underreported problem that has become a…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on August 1, 2013 at 6:32pm — No Comments

When a Loved One Goes Missing Abroad: Some Lessons from a Family Member Who Has Been There

The disappearance of a parent, child, sibling, or spouse under mysterious circumstances is a painful and frustrating ordeal. When a loved one goes missing in a foreign country, new layers of confusion and concern are added. 



I learned this first-hand when my brother, Joe Dunsavage, disappeared while on vacation on Roatan, one of the Bay Islands of Honduras. Joe, who lived in New…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on June 22, 2013 at 10:27pm — No Comments

4 Years After Disappearance From Roatan, Joe Dunsavage's Family Struggles for Answers and Justice

This is my family's story, which appeared in this morning's Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey. Four years after my brother's disappearance from the island of Roatan, it is the first time we've been able to get out of the Middlesex County section and onto the front page (above the fold! This is progress!). It's also the first story to try to touch on the larger issues facing…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on May 14, 2013 at 8:58am — No Comments

The Dunsavages' Struggle Explained

First, I want to thank everyone who reached out to Sen. Lautenberg and Sen. Menendez today. You all made a real impact. 

 

I want to explain the issue at hand. Here is the link to the relevant legislative language, which the State Department invokes whenever they tell us they "cannot give"  or "are prohibited by law from giving" my family a consular finding of presumptive death. Please make sure you read it so you understand the issues.

 …

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on February 15, 2011 at 12:09am — 2 Comments

Please Help the Dunsavage Family Help Joe's Kids

For those of you who don't know my family's story, the story that led to the creation of the Missing Americans Project, I will briefly recount it:

 

My brother Joe disappeared on May 10, 2009 after taking a small recreational catamaran into the shallows off the West End of the island of Roatan in Honduras. Thanks to the efforts of friends and family across the country calling their congressmen to ask them to press for action, we succeeded in getting an exhaustive 3-day air/sea…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on February 14, 2011 at 12:56am — 3 Comments

Missing in Honduras: Julio Martin Baltodano

I just happened to be looking at the "missing Americans" page of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras website (the sort of thing I do with my copious spare time) and learned about another missing man: Julio Martin Baltodano. Missing date: November 13, 2008. This is the second missing American to be "backfilled" on the well-buried page since I started looking at it in May 2009. Some of you may remember the story…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on January 14, 2011 at 3:17pm — No Comments

Happy Birthday, Joe (Oct. 5, 1959 - ?) Lost May 10, 2009

Neither first nor, sadly, last. Inspired The Missing Americans Project, which is no longer solely or even primarily about missing Americans. A global problem no one will acknowledge until enough people know and care enough to make noise to their government representatives.

Added by Jeff Dunsavage on October 5, 2010 at 1:00am — No Comments

Dutch Reporters Arrested for Trying to Talk With Roatan Murder Suspect

Dutch TV crime reporter Peter R de Vries, 53, and his colleague Chantal van Schuylenburgh, 43, were arrested in Autstralia for trying to talk to a 31-year-old Australian who they say is a murder suspect in the death of 23-year-old Dutch woman Mariska Mast in Roatan, Honduras two years ago. Read full story.

The Australian, Dan Ross, was…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on August 21, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

A National Campaign on Behalf of Missing Americans & Their Families

It is time. Let's use the sad anniversary of David Gimelfarb's disappearance in Costa Rica to kick off a national campaign on behalf of missing Americans and their families. Ron Scheepstra of Texas, Joe Dunsavage of New Jersey, David Gimelfarb of Illinois, Richard Alicea and Edwin Pritchard of Florida, Leo Finley of Missouri -- and all the others we don't know about -- must not have been lost in vain. Let's use this occasion to contact our Senators and Representatives by whatever means we…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on August 11, 2010 at 12:17pm — No Comments

Journalist Murders Spotlight Honduran Government Failures

This article on the Committee to Protect Journalists website highlights the fact that Honduras remains a violent and politically unstable country and that the country's leadership may well be behind the violence. And yet this is the country whose government the U.S. State Department wants my family to appeal to in order to obtain the presumptive death finding… Continue

Added by Jeff Dunsavage on July 28, 2010 at 1:27pm — No Comments

Why Can't Simple Things Be Easy?

Some things are complicated, some aren’t – and some simple things become unnecessarily complicated by politics and/or bureaucratic inertia. Over the past year, I have become quite the authority on simple things being made complicated.

In May 2009, my brother Joe Dunsavage disappeared while on vacation on Isla de Roatan, Honduras. We don’t really know what happened apart from the fact that he left the beach to tool around the shallows offshore in a 10-foot-long outboard-powered…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on July 27, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Would More U.S. Interest in Holloway Case Have Prevented Flores' Murder?

Call me obsessive. I don't care. Five years ago, the Natalee Holloway disappearance was, in my mind, just another media feeding frenzy masquerading as journalism. Now I ask: for all the attention the case got, how much interest did the U.S. government take in the plight of a missing (likely murdered) U.S. citizen and her family?

Five years since, and families of the missing are still left on their own to invent the wheel when a loved one disappears outside their country's borders. It…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on June 7, 2010 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Power of Twitter: Father's Plea to Help Find Son Goes Viral Globally

A UK Dad whose eight-month-old son was kidnapped has launched a desperate plea for help on Twitter after busy police ignored his plight, according to this article in the Daily Mail Online. Martin Perry, 32, made the anxious appeal via the micro-blogging site after Tristan was snatched from a nursery near Bangkok, Thailand, nearly two…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on June 4, 2010 at 2:00am — No Comments

Arpaio Says No to Mexico Travel. How About Honduras?

A blog post in ArizonaCentral.com: "Arpaio Says No to Mexico Travel. How About Honduras?"

While I know the suggestion is made with tongue firmly planted in cheek as a reference to a junket the sheriff's team apparently made to Roatan on the Arizona taxpayer's dime, Honduras IS being heavily promoted as a tourism destination and precious little media attention is being paid to the tourists and expats (as well as…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on May 25, 2010 at 10:50am — No Comments

Are All Missing Persons Created Equal?

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…

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Added by Jeff Dunsavage on February 10, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

Asking The Right Questions (Part 1): How Many Missing?

A reporter recently asked me two questions about the material I've been posting, and they were exactly the right questions:



* What do you find suspicious about these disappearances?

* You talk about 8 men missing in the region in 10 months -- how many disappeared in the prior 10 months?



Here is an excellent example of a journalist doing his job correctly -- holding me accountable for my assertions and seeking hard facts and data.



I'll begin with the second… Continue

Added by Jeff Dunsavage on January 30, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

Reasons for Hope

The first thing Leo Finley's friend, Lori Young, asked me was, "Do you ever find anyone alive?"



Man! My first thought was: "My God! She thinks we're a bunch of professionals doing this!"



I had to answer her honestly, that in our extensive experience of less than a year, we've had few, if any, happy endings. There were the girls in Ecuador, but we weren't really involved in that;… Continue

Added by Jeff Dunsavage on December 31, 2009 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Help Find Michael Dixon

We don't know much at this point except that Michael Dixon vanished on Oct. 19 in Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica, about 50 miles from where David Gimelfarb disappeared. Here's the timeline as we know it right now: October 15 Michael gets a bag stolen close to La Fortuna and he loses his phone charger

October 18 Michael checks into the Villas Macondo (

http://www.villasmacondo.com/) in… Continue

Added by Jeff Dunsavage on October 29, 2009 at 4:30pm — 4 Comments

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