Hello friends!
Welcome to our latest video!
Today we bring you something just a little different...
Missing in Paradise the Honduras
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Honduras is home to the second largest coral reef in the world and one of the
most beautiful countries in Central America, Honduras hosts many rare exotic bird species,
one of the oldest clocks in the world, and delicious foods.
With a captivating view of the Caribbean Sea and beaches that are the quintessential tropical
paradise setting, Honduras is the postcard setting of what we picture as a true vacation spot.
But, even the most beautiful place on Earth has a dark side
and Honduras is no different. In the last few years, kidnappings, human trafficking,
unsolved murders, and gang activities have risen to new highs and the country has a
travel advisory that should be checked before booking tickets to visit there.
The struggles the Hondurans face are poverty, lack of jobs,
and in the most rural areas, people live on as little as $1.60 per day.
Therefore, tourism is very important to the area. 14.6% of the economy is based on tourism.
However, that has decreased in the last few years due to the crime rates and gang activities.
People do vacation there and remain perfectly safe
but, there are also the people that live or travel to Honduras that go missing.
Some are found alive, some are found deceased, and some are never found.
Today we will examine a few cases of the missing in Paradise.
On January 1, 2022, twenty-three-year-old Angie Pena was enjoying the warm sun, cool water, and
a rented jet ski she was riding just off the beach of West Bay of Roatan, Honduras with her family.
The woman was reported missing, and a search quickly ensued.
On January 10, her life jacket and the jet ski were found in open waters by the Belize
Coast Guard, but there was no sign of Angie Pena.
When her family learned of her disappearance, her father offered
ten thousand dollars for information leading to his daughter’s whereabouts.
In a statement given to press, the grief-stricken father had this to
say about Angie’s missing status. We believe Angie was the victim of an organized crime.
However, Honduras authorities disagree.
They believe Honduras native was lost at sea.
This opinion was reached after they found the “kill switch” for the jet ski
and the life vest Pena was wearing floating in the water about ten miles offshore.
Each jet ski is fitted with an emergency kill switch or automatic engine shutoff
should a rider become thrown or otherwise fall off the boat.
Each vehicle operator wears the switch that at one end, starts and engages the engine
and the other end is fitted with a loop that fits over the operator’s wrist.
Once the key is pulled from the ignition, the engine shuts down.
This keeps the watercraft from running over riders may fall off.
Most kill switches also have a floating device attached to them to keep the key
from sinking into water should the key accidentally fall into the water.
Local authorities continued working with the Pena family to look for Angie even going so far as to
use a submersible to search the bottom of deeper waters off the coast of where she was last seen.
Other watercraft also got involved in the search,
but the only items ever found were the kill key and life vest.
Angie Pena’s family remains hopeful that she will be brought home to them, either way.
During an interview authorities stated the following, “I want to clarify that
we are not completely ruling out the possibility of hypothesis (kidnapping),
we continue working on it, there is a lot of evidence, whose analysis requires a
period of time that is not necessarily short, everything indicates that it was an accident.”
On January 31, 2022, the Belize Coast Guard set out to open waters to scan the deeper
areas near where the kill key and life vest was found.
“Today we will do an exercise with a specialized device (submersible) hoping
to find evidence and elements to confirm or discard one of the versions."
Pena’s father stated in an interview just eight days after his daughter’s disappearance,
“Until I run out of instances, I will not rule out that my daughter is alive,
on land. I want to find my girl, alive or dead.”
The search was scaled back after the Belize Coast Guard, locals, her family,
and local officials found nothing after the kill switch and life vest.
Her case was labeled an accident at sea. Angie Pena remains missing to this day.
If you have any information on this case, you are urged to contact +504 3337 7071
or Belize Coast Guard at their website bcg.gov.bz reference Angie Pena.
There is a $10,000.00 reward offered in this case for information leading to Pena’s whereabouts.
Angie Pena is described as Honduran female, twenty-three years old, brown hair and brown eyes,
she has a freckle under her left eye.
If you have any information, you can remain anonymous.
On May 10, 2009, New Jersey, USA native Joseph Dunsavage boarded a catamaran
off the beach of Roatan Island, Honduras and was never seen again.
He left his keys, wallet, passport, and luggage at the hotel where he was staying.
On Sunday, May 17, 2009, United States Coast Guard,
Belize Coast Guard, and Honduras officials suspended their search for the missing man.
Even though the official search was suspended, the Belize Coast Guard said they still had boast
in the Southern part of the Caribbean looking for the forty-nine-year-old father of five.
Joseph Dunsavage Jr. the second oldest child said, “My dad is a survivor. I believe we
will see him soon here, having a beer and telling everyone about his experiences.”
Dunsavage was a co-business owner of a rental company for glass bottom boats in the Roatan area.
It was a business/vacation trip for the New Jersey man. Dunsavage was also preparing for back surgery
of an unnamed condition, so his return trip date was unknown at the time he disappeared.
The weather that day was beautiful, and the catamaran was fixed with an
outboard motor and was filled with fuel just in case sailing winds died down.
After he didn’t return for “several hours,” help was summoned, and the search began.
Dunsavage Jr. was disappointed when the search ended just eight days after his
father went missing, but said he was grateful for the efforts put forth in the days prior
by local officials and the US Coast Guard and military.
In an interview a year later, Joseph Dunsavage’s father, Ed Dunsavage said, “A year later,
we have to accept the inevitable,” speaking on the disappearance and presumed death of his son.
On an episode of Unknown Passage, an Apple Podcast,
Jeff Dunsavage talked about his missing brother and the events that lead up to
and the aftermath of a missing family member in a foreign country.
In this interview, it was said that the United States Embassy
doesn’t keep records of missing people overseas.
Because of this and the struggles the family faced during the search for Joseph,
they have started the Missing American Project
that helps aid families of missing loved ones in foreign countries.
Joseph Dunsavage is described as an American male,
he would be 61 or 62 years old this year, blue eyes, and a shaved head. Dunsavage
often took a company boat out to fish the area and would travel to Honduras many times a year.
If you have any information on the case of Joseph
Dunsavage, you are asked to call the United States Embassy in Honduras +504 2236-9320.
“If they were taken alive, we want them back alive.”
This was the statement given by Garifuna community
in 2020 when five of their leaders were kidnapped at the height of the pandemic.
At the time, Honduras was under strict travel bans around the country due to COVID.
Only military, police, and medical professionals
could move freely about the communities during that time.
The five men were in the area campaigning for the
2015 ruling on land illegally sold by the government to foreigners for development.
The home was invaded by men wearing police uniforms and bulletproof vests.
Earlier in the night, family members of the five men were
awoken from sleep and harassed into telling where the men were staying.
Locks were broken, windows busted, and the men were taken at gun point.
In September 2020, fifty days had passed without any demands or any
word on the men whereabouts as families waited to hear from the kidnappers.
Word never came.
“There has been an escalation of violent actions
against the leaders who defend these territories since 2015.” Said Rony Castillo an activist.
“Today, we feel stronger than ever. The Garifuna people have
permanently mobilized to defend their autonomy and self-determination,” OFRANEH said in a statement.
“We are conscious that the Garifuna cannot exist without our territories
and that the day we lose our land we will have lost what keeps our identity alive.”
Alberth Centeno, Milton Matinez,
Suami Mejia, Gerardo Rochez, and Junior Mejia remain missing to this day.
And now for successful rescues…
Eight students go missing off the coast of Roatan, Honduras.
A speedboat that was carrying eight students went missing on June 29, 2013.
Those missing included two American students, five Honduran students, and one Canadian student.
They left the Bay Island of Utila and were supposed to head to Water Cay, Belize,
but changed their minds at the last minute and decided to go to Roatan instead.
Their boat ran out of fuel miles off the coast, and they drifted out to sea,
then inland where they were spotted on Thursday, July 4th.
The United States Navy joined the search rescue recovery efforts and covered
4,500 square miles of sea before finding the missing students on Bay Island,
Honduras when the boat they were traveling in ran out of fuel.
That Wednesday morning, the missing people were spotted by the Navy drifting in the sea.
The United States Coast Guard successfully airlifted each student onto the helicopter
and returned to a local hospital in Honduras.
Families gathered to greet their missing and rescued loved ones
when news came in about the successful rescue.
Local fishermen and others helped aid in the search.
A special thanks to the United States Coast Guard, United States Navy, local Fishermen
of the Belize and Honduras areas’, and the media for aiding in the search and rescue efforts.
On July 6, 2021, Fishing vessel Falling Star
and her fifteen-man crew set off for a fishing trip for lobster off the coast of Jamacia.
Just before midnight the same day, an emergency call came
into the Coast Guard that the ship was in trouble off the coast of Honduras.
It was in an irretrievable list and rolled without warning.
Some of her passengers were able to release the skiff into the water and
climb aboard before the Falling Star sank to the depths of the sea floor.
Search and Rescue efforts started straight away and local commercial
vessels in the area were notified of the sinking.
On July 15, 2021, ten men that survived the
sinking were found in the skiff having survived ten days at sea.
Sadly, the captain had passed away a day earlier and was buried at sea.
The men were found and pulled aboard the MTM AMSTERDAM on their way to Guatemala from Jamacia.
The cargo vessel spotted the men after hearing the destress call for ships
in the area where the sinking happened to keep an eye out for the missing fishermen.
The men were taken from the ship to local hospital
where they were treated for dehydration and other non-life-threatening conditions.
Tragically, the other four men are still listed as missing, and the captain was celebrated
for his efforts in getting the distress call out before the ship suddenly sank.
March 25, 2020, an unnamed American woman was rescued by an American
military group specializing in search and rescue operations.
The group is made up of Special Operations Veterans and helps get American/Canadian
citizens that have been kidnapped, out of those type of situations.
Not many details were available for this story but what we do know
is the woman was the “victim of a violent crime in the Central American country,”
after her rescue, she was returned to the United States.
Also the team was able to successfully rescue
an American women’s’ tackle football team during the same rescue mission.
The rescue group called Global Guardian,
specialize in rescue missions where special tactical search and rescue efforts are needed.
During this mission, the group rescued one hundred and forty-four Americans and Canadians.
A tragic case…
On December 2, 2010, A Canadian tourist and his daughter were
seized by bandits on a yacht two hours off the coast of Honduras, in Rio Tinto.
Fifty-eight-year-old Milan Egrmajer and his twenty-four-year-old daughter Myda
were visiting Honduras from Canada and were on the moored yacht named Adena,
having diverted their sailing itinerary during a storm when
the kidnappers boarded the vessel and shot Milan Egrmajer in front of his daughter.
Milan had been living on the boat for the last two years, making his way around the Caribbean Sea.
Myda had flown from Canada to join her father the
month prior for a sailing and scuba diving vacation.
The pair left Guatemala on November 26, bound for a smaller island to do some scuba diving
but the storm came about, and they decided to anchor down and wait it out.
The vessel was fitted with a beacon that tracked the boat and could also send distress signals.
A half hour before trouble started,
Milan had checked in with family members and everything was okay.
Then came the distress signals.
About a half a dozen 911 calls were made in a thirty-minute span,
indicating something was wrong.
The theory is that the men boarded the boat intent to rob the passengers
when Milan tried to stop them, they shot him.
Myda managed to get away using a flare gun and call for help
but the call was dropped before she could get out vital information to would-be rescuers.
She jumped overboard to safety and was picked up
by a luxury cruiser from Australia that happened to be in the area.
They took the woman to Belize where she was said to be “physically ok.”
Bad weather prevented other nearby ships from attempting to reach the scene.
Myda was missing for a bit while an aircraft flew over the area having been alerted to the scene
after hearing the distress call, but they were unable to see the woman.
An oil tanker also tried to reach the area but due to bad weather, had to turn back.
It is unknown if the bandits were caught or if they stole anything.
Milan Egrmajer was a veteran of the Canadian Navy and was
assigned to the HMCS Oriole, a training yacht.
A special salute to a man that served his country for seven years.
Navel Lieutenant Milan Egrmajer, thank you for your service.
Well folks... there you have it!
What do you think of the trouble that can happen in paradise?
For those of you headed out to exotic travel destinations
in the Caribbean and beyond this summer please be safe out there!
Till we meet again...
be good to yourself and each other!
As for me, I'll see you just a little further on down the trail.
I'm Steve Stockton and I'll talk to you next time