Tag: mysterious disappearances

Cartel hitman who decapitated enemies has gone missing from a US prison

A cartel leader and hitman fond of videotaping torture sessions and decapitating likely dozens of enemies has gone missing from a federal prison in Florida, where he was serving a 49-year sentence.

As of November, Edgar Valdez-Villareal, a Mexican American cartel leader, had been mysteriously removed from the federal Bureau of Prisons website. He is now listed as “not in BOP custody” even though his release date is not until July 27, 2056.

Valdez-Villareal, 49, is known by his underworld moniker “La Barbie,” and headed up the Los Negros, an enforcement group of the Beltran Leyva cartel — one of Mexico’s most ruthless underworld groups. At one point, he was a top lieutenant for the Sinaloa Cartel, run by convicted drug dealer Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman-Loera.

Valdez-Villareal grew up in Laredo, Texas, and was given his nickname from a high school football coach because his blue eyes and light complexion made him look like a Ken doll, according to a report.

“We called him Ken Doll, mostly because his hair was blond and kinky like the doll’s,” a friend from United High School told Rolling Stone in 2011. “The coach upped the ante to Barbie, and it took off like wildfire.”

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Missing College Student Found Dead After Solo Hike in New Hampshire Mountains

A missing college student was found dead on Wednesday after she set out on a solo hike several days earlier in the White Mountains area of Franconia, N.H.

Emily Sotelo set off on her hike of Franconia Ridge on Sunday morning, said a news release from the New Hampshire Fish and Game (NHFG).

After she did not return later on that same day, a family member notified the NHFG.

“Due to the harsh weather conditions a search commenced Sunday evening and lasted through the night,” NHFG said.

“Searchers were hampered by high winds, cold temperatures, and blowing snow. Searchers spent the next two days looking for Sotelo and Tuesday afternoon tracks and items belonging to Sotelo were located at the headwaters of Lafayette Brook.”

Sotelo’s body was found at 11:00 am on Wednesday, and a state Army National Guard helicopter transferred her body to the Cannon Mountain Ski Area.

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20-year-old hiker Emily Sotelo missing on popular New Hampshire trail

A New Hampshire hiker has disappeared after she set out on a popular trail in bone-chilling weather, authorities said.

Emily Sotelo, 20, was dropped off Sunday morning at Lafayette Place Campground in Franconia, with the intended hiking route of Mount Lafayette, Haystack and Flume, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Law Enforcement Division.

As temperatures in the area dropped to near zero, with 30- to 40-mph winds making the chill factor a frigid -30 degrees, Sotelo failed to return from the hike at the expected hour, and there have been no sightings of the woman.

Search and rescue crews scoured the ridge for the missing hiker throughout Sunday and continued looking for her Monday.

A National Guard Blackhawk helicopter was expected to assist in the search for the vanished hiker, station WMUR reported.

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‘Missing’ ABC producer James Gordon Meek is seen for the first time since he went into hiding in April – but refuses to answer questions on mysterious FBI raid on his penthouse that brought his storied career to an abrupt halt

‘Missing’ ABC producer James Gordon Meek has emerged from hiding – but refuses to discuss the mysterious FBI raid that brought his storied journalism career to an abrupt halt.

Meek, an Emmy winner and celebrated investigative reporter, resigned from the network just hours after heavily-armed agents swooped on his penthouse apartment in Arlington, Virginia in April.

DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal that Meek also ducked out of a glittering award ceremony held one week later where he was due to collect a prize for his coverage of Joe Biden‘s chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Instead, the 53-year-old news veteran contacted stunned organizers at the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation to tell them he couldn’t accept.

Meek’s pals say he’s been AWOL for the past six months after he packed his stuff and moved out of his upscale digs at the six-story Siena Park building in the wake of the raid.

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ABC News Producer Missing Since FBI Raid, Was Writing Book About Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal

A star reporter for ABC News has been missing since an April 27 FBI raid at his Arlington, Virginia apartment.

Emmy award winner James Gordon Meek – a deep-dive journalist who was also a former senior counterterrorism adviser and investigator for the House Homeland Security Committee, abruptly quit his job of 9 years and “fell off the face of the earth,” after the raid, one of his colleagues told Rolling Stone.

At the time of the raid, Meek, 52, was co-authoring a now-published book about the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to ‘sources familiar with the matter,’ federal agents allegedly found classified information on Meek’s laptop during their raid – though one investigative journalist who had worked with him said it would be highly unusual for a reporter to do so.

“Mr. Meek is unaware of what allegations anonymous sources are making about his possession of classified documents,” said his lawyer, Eugene Gorokhov, in a statement. “If such documents exist, as claimed, this would be within the scope of his long career as an investigative journalist covering government wrongdoing. The allegations in your inquiry are troubling for a different reason: they appear to come from a source inside the government. It is highly inappropriate, and illegal, for individuals in the government to leak information about an ongoing investigation. We hope that the DOJ [Department of Justice] promptly investigates the source of this leak.”

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Star news producer vanishes after FBI raids his Arlington home

Documentary producer and investigative journalist James Gordon Meek hasn’t been seen since the FBI raided his apartment in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC, on 27 April of this year.

The 52-year-old’s neighbour John Antonelli told Rolling Stone magazine that he witnessed the raid from the street as he was heading out on a walk. He said he spotted 10 heavily armed people among the group of law enforcement officers, a green armoured tactical vehicle, a black utility vehicle with tinted windows and several Arlington police cars, among other vehicles.

Only the police cruisers were marked, Mr Antonelli noted. The heavily armed individuals had no markings revealing what agency they were working for. The raid took around 10 minutes.

“They didn’t stick around. They took off pretty quickly and headed west on Columbia Pike towards Fairfax County,” Mr Antonelli told Rolling Stone. “Most people seeing that green vehicle would think it’s some kind of tank. But I knew it was the Lenco BearCat. That vehicle is designed to be jumped out of so they can do a raid in that kind of time. It can return fire if they’re being fired upon.”

The magazine reported that Mr Meek was targeted by the FBI at his home at the Siena Park apartments, where he had lived for more than 10 years.

The FBI told Rolling Stone that agents went to the home on 27 April “at the 2300 block of Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia, conducting court-authorized law-enforcement activity. The FBI cannot comment further due to an ongoing investigation”.

While Mr Meek hasn’t been charged, observers think that this could be among the initial raids, if not the first, to be conducted on a reporter by the Biden administration.

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‘Multiple Human Remains’ Discovered During Search for Four Missing Oklahoma Cyclists: Police

Police in an Oklahoma city with fewer than 12,000 residents Friday reported finding four unidentified human bodies in Deep Fork River.

Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said in a post to the department’s Facebook page that a passerby informed them of suspicious items in the river near Sharp Road around 2 p.m. Friday

“Four male bodies were recovered from the river,” Prentice said in a statement. “No identifications have been made at the scene and the Medical Examiner will have to make the official identifications.”

The bodies have been sent to the medical examiner’s office in Tulsa for autopsies, the chief added.

Four local friends were reported missing in the area Sunday, but police declined to link the bodies to the missing men. The missing men’s families were notified of the discovery, police said.

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The mysterious disappearances on Hawaii’s Napali Coast and the Kalalau Trail on Kauai

The Kalalau Trail is considered a dangerous trail, located in the Napali Coast State Wilderness Park of Kauai. Most people know this trail for the first 2 miles to Hanakapiai Beach, but permitted backpackers can go the full 11 miles to Kalalau Beach at the end, where camping is allowed.

Set among a coastline of steep cliffs, valleys and streams, the Kalalau Trail requires the most rescues on Kauai. Aside from the usual risks that come with hiking, rain on this coastline can cause the many streams in the area to flash flood. Kauai’s red clay dirt can crumble when dry and be extremely slippery when wet. Strong ocean currents can pull swimmers out to sea.

Deaths on the trail happen often enough that a sign posted at Hanakapiai Stream tallies its victims — close to 100 the last time I visited. This doesn’t include deaths at other streams and beaches, those from falling rocks or falls from great heights.

Still, the trail’s wild and remote beauty attracts day hikers, backpackers, free spirits and illegal campers, who stay for extended periods. About 500,000 visitors and residents ventured out on the trail in 2015, according to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources.

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New Details Emerge Regarding Georgia Mom Debbie Collier’s Activities on Day She Disappeared

Police have revealed new details about the circumstances surrounding the death of Debbie Collier, the Georgia mom who disappeared after sending her daughter a chilling text after surveillance footage revealed that she purchased several items that were found on or near her body when she was discovered.

The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division (CID), the organization investigating Collier’s death, said in a press release Monday afternoon that Collier was alone when she entered the Family Dollar Store in Clayton, Georgia, on Saturday, September 10. 

Over the weekend, The CID said that it had received information claiming that Collier’s daughter, 36-year-old Amanda Bearden, had been at the store that day, but after talking to the clerk on duty and reviewing store camera footage, police determined she had not been there.

However, the footage revealed that Collier herself had entered the store at around 2:55 p.m., and exited around 3:09 p.m. While she was there, she appeared calm and “not in fear of anything,” the CID said in its press release. Authorities said she purchased a rain poncho, refillable torch lighter, paper towels, a large tarp and a reusable tote back.

Collier was found in a ravine 60 miles from her Athens, Georgia, home just a day later. She had severe burns on her body and there was the remains of a burned tarp nearby.   

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Body Found in Tennessee Confirmed as Missing Heiress Eliza Fletcher

Memphis police confirmed Tuesday that they found the remains of teacher Eliza “Liza” Fletcher, who was reportedly abducted last week

The police department wrote on Twitter that “the deceased victim that was located yesterday in the 1600 block of Victor [street] has been identified as 34-year-old Eliza Fletcher, a teacher who was also the heiress to the Orgill Inc. hardware fortune.

The development comes after Cleotha Abston, a 38-year-old male, was charged in connection to Fletcher’s kidnapping and with tampering with evidence. His DNA was found on a pair of sandals near her disappearance, police said.

Authorities wrote Tuesday that Abston now faces additional charges, including first-degree murder and first-degree murder in perpetration of kidnapping. Previously he was charged with aggravated kidnapping and evidence.

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