5.
Zayd Dada
Mount Nyangani, situated in Zimbabwe, isn’t known for being rugged and dangerous, though
a high level of fitness is needed to reach its summit of 8,500 feet, but severe and sudden
weather changes have been known to cause some hikers to get lost, especially during the
winter months.
The local Manyika people have long believed that the mountain is a sacred place and that
a vindictive spiritual presence is responsible for some of the people who have gone missing
during hikes.
Zayd Dada is one such missing person who has never been found.
Zayd was hiking on the mountain with his wife and another couple in an attempt to reach
the summit.
When they reached the halfway point, his wife and their friends told him that they were
too tired to carry on and that they wanted to return to their holiday chalets, but Zayd
decided that he wanted to press on.
He told them that he would meet them back at the chalets later on and went on his way,
never to be seen again.
A parks official would later tell searchers that other hikers on the mountain spotted
Zayd as they were making their way down the mountain next to a stream.
They stopped to talk to him and he indicated that his hike was going well; giving no indication
that anything was wrong.
After he was reported missing, a search was launched by helicopter, but it was interrupted
due to sudden high winds.
On the ground, more than 60 people joined the search which included rangers and some
of Zayd’s relatives and friends who travelled from South Africa, Australia, Botswana and
the UK to assist.
When Chief Saunyama of Nyaga was informed, he reportedly told the family that it would
cost them $21, 000 for his assistance.
He claimed it would cost them $1000 for him to leave his homestead and that the further
$20, 000 could be paid once they have tracked the missing man down.
His family felt that they had no option but to pay the money, though it brought no results
and Zayd remains missing.
4.
Gladys Stella Kidd
71-year-old Gladys Kidd from Rowan County, Kentucky was last seen when she left her home
on the 6th of August, 1990.
She had just sold her farm and when she left that day, she had just cashed the check which
was in the amount of $65, 000.
While at the bank, the teller that was serving her suggested that she take a cashier’s
check, but she refused and insisted that the money be given to her in cash.
17 days after her disappearance, her family received a letter from her in which she told
them not to look for her and her family has since questioned whether she wrote the letter
of her own volition.
When her house was searched, it was found that she had taken her clothes and a filing
cabinet with her, but left all her other belongings behind.
Her granddaughter told police that Gladys had been in a relationship with an unknown
man.
The man refused to talk to any of her family members on the phone and stated that he didn’t
want his identity to be known to her friends, family or members of her church.
Before disappearing, she told her family that they knew the man who she was involved with
and stated that they would be shocked if they ever found out who he was.
The couple would have regular phone conversations and they went out on several dates, but he
has never been identified.
Since the day of her mysterious disappearance, there have been no collections of her Social
Security benefits, her Social Security number has shown no activity and her driver’s license
remains expired.
Though her family believes that she may have met with foul play, no further evidence has
ever been found.
3.
Sarah MacDiarmid
Sarah MacDiarmid, a 23-year-old woman who immigrated to Australia from the Scottish
Highlands in 1987, left her home on the 11th of July 1990.
She was wearing a grey tracksuit and was carrying a backpack containing her sports clothes,
a walkman, tennis racquet and $60 in cash.
She was heading to Flinders Park on Batman Avenue, East Melbourne where she met up with
two of her friends for a game of tennis.
It was common for Sarah to catch the 9:10pm train home from Richmond Station and she would
usually arrive home at around 10:30pm.
When she had not arrived home by 11pm however, her family started to worry and her brother
was able to confirm that she was not on the last train which left at 1am.
He also discovered that her car was still parked in the station’s car park.
They assumed that she must have decided to stay over at a friend’s house and decided
to wait until the morning to see if she returned home.
When they contacted Sarah’s friends the following morning at 9am, they stated that
Sarah had in fact caught a train with them but said that she had not arrived for work
that morning.
The friends further told police that they had missed the Frankston line train that they
intended to catch and instead caught a train to Caulfield after which they changed to a
Frankston service.
The two friends got off at Bonbeach, but Sarah stayed on the train, travelling to Kananook
station where she had left her car.
A witness, Maria Babacala, told police that she had gotten off the train at the same time
as Sarah and moments later heard a stern female voice saying “give me my car keys back and
stop fooling around”.
She looked back in the direction of the voice, but it was too dark for her to see anything.
Moments later, she heard a scream that was quickly cut off coming from the same direction,
but she couldn’t see what had happened.
When police arrived at Sarah’s car, they found evidence on the ground of a struggle,
though her Honda Civic was untouched.
The evidence led them to a small area of trees and bushes nearby where the dirt seemed to
have been recently disturbed and a green cigarette lighter was found next to two parallel drag
marks.
Forensic analysis confirmed that the lighter, which was bought from a shop near her workplace,
belonged to Sarah.
In July of that year, several friends of a street worker named Jodie Jones came forward
to tell police that she had confessed to them that she ended Sarah’s life with the help
of two men.
She was arrested and questioned, but denied any involvement and she was never charged.
Despite a search by 250 members of police over sea, land and air, Sarah’s mysterious
disappearance remains unsolved.
2.
The Sarah Joe
The Sarah Joe was a 17-foot Boston Whaler motorboat with an 85 horsepower engine.
It was named by owner Robert Malaiakini after his mother, Sarah and his father, Joe.
On the 11th of February, 1979, five friends, Scott Moorman, Benjamin Kalama, Peter Hanchett,
Patrick Woessner and Ralph Malaiakini boarded the Sarah Joe at the town of Hana on the Hawaiian
island of Maui in clear and excellent weather conditions.
There was only a moderate breeze and the water was smooth and clear, but about 2 hours after
they set off at around 12pm, the weather turned.
None of the men had checked the weather report, since they had only planned to be out on the
water for a few hours.
However, a major low-pressure system was quickly approaching the islands and when the storm
hit, conditions at sea were unsuitable for even experienced sailors with gale-force winds
and torrential rain accompanied by swells of over 40 feet.
When the man did not return in time, locals and family members started searching the coastline,
but with no results.
The next day, the Coast Guard started their own search after conditions had cleared up,
joined by other ships, boats, trained homing pigeons and aircraft, covering an area of
over 70, 000 square miles, but no trace of the men or their boat was found and the search
was called off.
On the 10th of September, 1988, a biologist named John Naughton discovered the Sarah Joe
while working at Taongi Atoll, thousands of miles away.
Nothing was found in the boat but, about 100 yards away, a shallow grave with a cross was
discovered and next to it, they found three blank squares of paper, each separated by
a layer of tin foil.
This points to an Oriental burial tradition where money is placed inside the deceased
person’s coffin, separated by layers of gold or silver tin foil.
The money is intended to be used by the deceased in the afterlife.
The remains that were found were sent for analysis and it was found to be those of Scott
Moorman but that was the last clue that was ever found.
The rest of the Sarah Joe’s crew was never found and their fate remains an unsolved mystery.
1.
Allison and Marie-José Benitez
On the 14th of July, 2014, Allison and Marie-José Benitez disappeared under suspicious circumstances
from Perpignan in south-western France.
Marie-José was estranged from her Spanish-born husband, Francisco Benitez and their daughter
Allison, was a would-be beauty queen who was described by her boyfriend, Alexandre Durand
as having dreamed of becoming Miss France.
On the day of their disappearance, the two women sent a text message to Francisco’s
other daughter stating that they were going to Toulouse.
Allison had earlier attended a luncheon with other candidates taking part in the Miss Roussillon
beauty contest and was driven home by her father.
He told police that, when he dropped his daughter off, he discovered that Marie-José had packed
a suitcase and she left along with Allison for their trip to Toulouse and that their
cell phones were switched off.
He neglected to inform Marie-José’s family, however and when they had not heard from the
two women for a few days, they reported the mother and daughter as missing people.
Francisco didn’t report them as missing until the 22nd of July, 8 days later.
Police found no evidence that they had travelled to Toulouse as Francisco claimed.
Neither of their bank accounts had seen any activity and their cell phone records showed
that no inbound or outbound calls had been made.
Searches yielded no results but the family of Simone Oliviera Alves, a Brazilian woman
from Nimes, came forward to inform police that she had been dating Francisco, not knowing
that he was married and that she had disappeared under similar circumstances in 2004.
They had caught wind of the story in the media and decided that they needed to contact authorities
who immediately confronted him with this information, but he insisted that the cases were unrelated.
A few weeks later, Francisco uploaded a video to the website of a French magazine in which
he asked any witnesses to come forward while proclaiming his innocence.
It is believed that the suspicion surrounding him had become too much to bear and he took
his own life on the 5th of August at the Perpignan Foreign Legion barracks
Forensic tests carried out at the barracks in 2013 found biological material belonging
to Allison in a freezer and tumble drier.
Francisco had cleaned both the tumble drier and freezer shortly after they had gone missing
and it is believed that he ended their lives after Allison discovered his affair and threatened
to tell her mother.
Both women remain missing.