Missing/Drowned in 2012

More Serial Drownings, Or More Serial Murders?

The following are just a few new cases for this year that I'm still tracking and/or waiting on toxicology reports for, but which aren't included in my special investigatory report THE CASE OF THE DROWNING MEN:

1. Honor student Eric Duffey briefly spent the eve of his twenty-first birthday at a bar in Stevens Point Wisconsin in the company of his many classmates and friends. He left that establishment relatively early--and alone--because he had plans to meet his family the very next morning. They were coming into town to celebrate the special occasion with him.

But Duffey never made it home that night. Instead, his drowned body was discovered days later in a location which was in the opposite direction from where he had been headed:

"Preliminary autopsy reports show a 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student died earlier this month from accidental drowning.  Eric Duffey went missing March 3 after leaving Joe's Bar in Stevens Point. His body was found March 5 in the Wisconsin River. The Stevens Point Journal reports Portage County Coroner Scott Rifleman released the preliminary autopsy results Friday."

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2. Boston College honor student Franco Garcia quickly stepped out of a local bar he'd been attending with his friends so that he could withdraw some funds from an ATM machine. He would be right back, he texted to them from just around the corner."Don't leave without me."

But, ultimately, those friends had to do just that, because Garcia never returned from his errand. His corpse was discovered many weeks later in the nearby reservoir, a place which had already been exhaustively searched by authorities and dive teams at least a half a dozen times, or more...

"The Boston College student whose body was recovered yesterday in Chestnut Hill Reservoir, seven weeks after he went missing upon leaving a nearby bar, died of an apparent accidental drowning. Officials said 21-year-old Franco Garcia's preliminary autopsy indicated that 'there are no signs of foul play. Everything is consistent with accidental drowning.' But Justin Billard, a private investigator working for the family, questioned how Garcia could have fallen down the gently sloped wall of granite blocks that line the inside of the reservoir, considering there was no ice on the warm night of Feb. 22 when the student disappeared."  There were no signs of injury on Garcia, and water in his sinus cavity."

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3. Pre-Med student Colin Gillis, 18 of Tupper Lake New York, had returned home in early March to visit with his parents and friends during school break. He was last observed walking to his residence after attending a party several miles away...but he never made it back to his family. An exhaustive search of a massive area involving every local authority imaginable, including military personnel (and equipment) from the nearby training base has yielded no results except, according to rumor, one of his shoes and his driver's license, items allegedly found placed at the side of the highway. Colin Gillis is still missing and unaccounted for today...

"More than 1,000 volunteers have contributed so far to the search for missing Tupper Lake teenager Colin Gillis. State Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger Capt. John Streiff said that that means 10,000 hours have been spent by volunteers searching the woods. Gillis, 18, had just returned home on spring break from SUNY Brockport when he went missing after leaving a party on foot early Sunday morning. It's believed he was last seen on the side of the road near the line between Franklin and St. Lawrence counties, where Tupper Lake and Piercefield meet. Anyone with any information that might help find Gillis is asked to call State Police at 518-897-2000."

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4. Recent Harvard Business School grad, Nathan Bihlmaier, was celebrating in Maine with his buddies in advance of their pending graduation ceremonies at Harvard, when he was mysteriously booted from the bar they were drinking at. Bihlmaier went missing shortly thereafter and an all out search was launched the next day for him when he did not return to the hotel situated across the street from the pub. A few days later, police divers fished his body out of the nearby harbor. Thirty-year-old Nathan Bilhmaier was married and the couple was expecting their first baby. He was also a highly-skilled swimmer and a certified lifeguard in his youth...


"The account given by the security manager at Ri Ra Irish Pub who told Nathan Bihlmaier to leave the bar shortly before he drowned in nearby Portland Harbor is not supported by videotape from the bar, police said Friday. After being ejected from the establishment, Bihlmaier got separated from his friends. He last spoke with them at 12:15 a.m. Sunday and then his cellphone went dead at 12:54 a.m. His body was found on Tuesday in deep water alongside Custom House Wharf. Police said the security video from the Ri Ra Pub shows the bouncer escorting Bihlmaier from the bar and returning 28 seconds later, which is inconsistent with 'walking a block and a half with Bihlmaier' and trying "to get him into a cab'. The video does not show the two outside the bar, and police still don't know where the vicitm was the prior 90 minutes before his phone went dead."