Jeff Dunsavage's Blog (589)

Panama authorities have said they will make one final attempt to find the remains of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers. At the request of the missing girls’ families, investigators will search the jungle again between January 12th and 16th. The investigators include a forensic anthropologist, a DNA specialist, a criminologist and four dogs, among others.…

A Northern Virginia yoga teacher and world traveler has been missing since Dec. 30, when he left for a hike in the Tepozteco Mountains in Mexico. Hari Simran and his wife Emily Smith had been attending a four-day yoga retreat called "Sat Nam Fest" near Tepoztlan, about 30 miles south of Mexico City.…

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One month ago, 43 students disappeared from the town of Iguala in Mexico’s Pacific state of Guerrero. The search for the youths exposed an infernal landscape: the flesh of the southern Mexican countryside is clogged with corpses in mass clandestine graves. None has yet yielded the missing. Read full article

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An Austin girl, kidnapped 12 years ago by her non-custodial parent, was found after a secret rescue mission Tuesday in Mexico. Sabrina Allen, now 16, has not yet been reunited with her father, but the woman who took her is now in custody. At this point it is not clear when the father and daughter will be united.

Sabrina was located in Tlaxcala, a small town south of Mexico City.…

The State Department report says 81 Americans were assassinated in Mexico last year, 10 more than in 2012, and an increase in kidnappings was noted in the states of Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Mexico and Morelos. During the first six months of this year the American embassy and consulates in Mexico received 70 reports of kidnappings of American citizens. Kidnappings were of the traditional kind, in which victims are physically removed from their surroundings, as well as “virtual,” in…

Ludwig Vico Pereira, a 56-year-old Swiss national was arrested in the murder of Ed Moyan on Friday, Aug. 8.  Ludwig was in the Interpol list of wanted persons, as "Wanted by the Judicial Authorities of Panama’.

Ed Moyan was reported missing from his home in Coronado, Panama, since Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012.  In March 2013, a body found in a suitcase in Campana National Park was confirmed to be Ed’s remains. The authorities believe that Ludwig did not act alone. There might have…

The Tico Times reports that a U.S. man  has been missing inside Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica's southwestern Osa Peninsula for more than two weeks.

Park rangers and a Red Cross rescue team are now searching for 27-year-old Alaska native Cody Dial, who goes by his middle name Roman and who is believed…

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Inside Costa Rica reports that a 19-year-old U.S. woman who was allegedly raped by multiple attackers in La Fortuna de San Carlos over the weekend has refused to cooperate in prosecuting four…

Inside Costa Rica reports that a 17-year-old high school student on a study tour from the U.S. state of Wisconsin, reported on Sunday that she was raped by seven men in La Fortuna de San Carlos, a popular tourist town that is home to the Arenal Volcano.

The man was identified as William Bryan Glenn, 44, from Mississippi. U.S. State Department declines to comment.

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Authorities in Mexico are investigating whether human remains found in a remote area of Mexico could be the body of an American traveler who has been missing since January. Harry Devert started a lengthy road trip on a motorcycle last fall that would take him across the U.S. and through parts of Central and South America. Devert, 32 when he disappeared, had planned to end the trip at the World Cup in Brazil.…

The BBC reports that two young Dutch women who disappeared while on vacation in Panama have been confirmed dead. They disappeared from Boquete, the same town where Alex Humphrey -- missing since 2009 -- was last seen.

" While visitors are warned against travelling to Panama's eastern border with Colombia because of the presence of Colombian rebels in the area, its western border region is…

The Tampa Bay Times reports that charges were dropped against six Americans wrongly jailed in Honduras and they have been allowed to take their boat and return home. Amazing what a bit of publicity can accomplish. Let's learn from this lesson and keep shining a light on the safety and security issues faced by those who travel in the developing world for pleasure…

SKNVibes -- a St. Kitts-based news site that recently published a rather vague report indicating that a sexual assault of a cruise passenger may have occurred -- now reports that: "Unconfirmed reports suggest that an act of sexual assault may have been perpetrated against one of the cruise passengers by one of the vessel’s crew members." I will pass along further details as (if?) they…