Today’s update on possible whereabouts of missing US cruise passenger Ann Evans (see related story) is most welcome. If a woman matching her description indeed checked into a hotel on the French side using her passport, it might mean she was never the victim of a crime but decided not to board the ship “Rotterdam” while in Port St. Maarten on November 20 herself.
Evans exited a tour bus during a scheduled stop in Marigot but did not return to the vehicle or the vessel. There was obviously concern over the guest’s fate, but she was apparently seen around the area afterwards.
Such cases can have severe consequences not just for persons directly involved, but for the entire destination. One example is the disappearance of Amy Bradley in Curaçao from “Rhapsody of the Seas” in 1998, which remains unsolved despite a new lead reported by her brother earlier this year from a former police officer in Curaçao, who supposedly claimed to have seen Amy as recently as 2016.
But the most damaging incident in the Dutch Caribbean was undoubtedly when Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway vanished during a graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. Joran van der Sloot, since serving another murder sentence in Peru, did not confess to killing her on a beach until nearly two decades later while on trial in the US for extorting the victim’s mother.
The ensuing boycott by American visitors significantly impacted the island and its tourism economy. That’s about the last thing St. Maarten/Saint Martin wants or needs as it continues to recover from Hurricane Irma and the COVID-19 crisis.
