All Blog Posts Tagged 'Roatan' (77)

At just past noon on Friday, August 19, Sam Wesley -- a West End business owner with roots on Roatán Island dating back to the 1840s -- came out of his house, pulled out a silver revolver, pressed it into Joe O’Donnell’s back, pulled the trigger and then walked back to his house without saying a word. There were at least five witnesses to the incident. As Mr. O'Donnell collapsed in the street, concerned shop owners Shannon and Christian ran to his aid, Mr.…

Been very busy of late, and am really grateful for the people who have been keeping active and engaged. Special thanks to Julie Jones for staying on top of missing persons news and forwarding relevant cases and doing outreach where she believes K9 search and rescue resources can be of assistance, and to …

Stay tuned for details.

Real Lefebvre -- the Canadian sailor who was reported missing after leaving Roatan, Honduras -- has been found safe in El Bluff, Nicaragua. His boat, the Dorcilyn, apparently experienced a complete electrical breakdown.  According to this post on Riodulcechisme.com, Lefebvre is seeking assistance to repair his…

A 43-year-old Quebec man is still missing two weeks after his boat disappeared off the coast of Honduras. Real Lefebvre, an experienced sailor from Saint-Donat located about 140 km north of Montreal, left the island of Roatan on Feb. 5. He was scheduled to get to San Andres, near Nicaragua, by Feb. 10. But he never arrived. Read full article.

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…

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…

From a Dec. 15, 2010, post on Lonely Planet: We were recently taken hostage at gunpoint, held captive for 5-6 hours and had all our possessions stolen on beautiful Roatan Island, Honduras. Read Full Post

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.

Jisoo Han, a Korean woman awaiting trial over the death of Dutch schoolteacher Mariska Mast in Roatan, Honduras, has pleaded for Australian Dan Ross to save her from spending the rest of her life in a Honduran jail. Han, under house arrest in Honduras, proclaimed her innocence yesterday and said she still had no idea what happened the night 23-year-old Mast died. Read full…

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…

According to my contact on the island, the boat is still not in Honduran police custody, "which means it will most likely sit there for weeks."

Speculation about the boat is rife. Again, according to my contact, "The guy who towed it in said it was upside down when they found it. Normally if a boat is stolen, it would be stripped, but everything is there. Maybe the boat was stolen, used for a drug run and left abandoned...We all find it strange that a drug boat would have the…

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…