Adrian Lynch of Jersey UK, Jim Dyer of Saco Maine and Matt Labounty of Troy NY are still gone without a trace, weeks after they were each reported missing -- search updates below:
STILL MISSING FROM JERSEY ISLAND: Divers, detectives and dogs have been intermittently searching for a 20-year-old Jerseyman who went missing after departing from a work-sponsored Christmas party the first week of December 2015.
Over two long months, though, the massive attempt to rescue
Adrian Lynch from whatever mysterious fate befell him that day has gradually morphed into a mission to recover the young man's body.
UK authorities have consistently theorized throughout this unsuccessful endeavor that a "disoriented" Lynch suffered a deadly "misadventure" and "not foul play," although his mum steadfastly believes "Addy is still alive" somewhere.
Her son was last seen by coworkers on December 5th getting into a taxi, then filmed a short time later by surveillance cameras proceeding on foot into the Carrefour Selous area of St. Lawrence, where the driver reportedly had dropped him off.
Residents, as well as other individuals observed in this district walking or hitchhiking at the same hour as
Adrian Lynch, were all repeatedly questioned by investigators, but these interviews have yielded nothing of substance.
Thus by mid February -- lacking "any new information" -- police announced they'd be "winding down" their investigation into his disappearance, which to date has only produced the youth's abandoned belt and wallet.
But a local law enforcement official also vowed that his agency “will never close" the Adrian Lynch case. "As long as he remains missing," the spokesman told reporters, "it will be monitored on an ongoing basis.”
STILL MISSING FROM PORTLAND MAINE: Police divers have extensively probed the frigid harbor waters in Old Port at least twice, after a 23-year-old Saco man got separated from his group during New Year's Eve festivities at the Pearl nightclub.
No one apparently saw
Jim Dyer vanish into thin air early that January morning as he was standing outside the establishment readying to leave with friends; and no one has seen or heard from him since.
In the meantime, the missing young man's family has gone-for-broke in hopes of rescuing him, losing weeks of work and paychecks in their nonstop, but so far fruitless, effort to find him.
On January 22nd, they got a big financial boost from the management of Duffy’s Tavern & Grille, which hosted a fundraiser for the Dyer family that brought in hundreds of community sympathizers and over $11,000.
Dyer's case resembles that of 30yo Harvard business grad,
Nathan Bihlmaier,
who, in 2012, also lost contact with friends, after bouncers at
Portland Maine's Ri Ra Irish Pub physically escorted him outdoors
and then his cell
phone died.
It would take searchers awhile to realize that Bihlmaier too was dead -- they eventually found him drowned in Portland harbor -- because Ri Ra's security had lied to police about putting Bihlmaier "in a cab."
Weeks after James Dyer disappeared, however, he is still missing.
STILL MISSING FROM UPSTATE NEW YORK: The trail leading to yet another youth who disappeared during the holidays while walking in a capitol-district city that flanks the Hudson River has grown cold.
As happened to
Josh Szostak in neighboring Albany NY in 2007,
Matt Labounty likewise lost contact with his friends and relatives in the midst of celebrating Christmas.
Labounty was last sighted on December 25, 2015, leaving a downtown Troy NY address on foot for his own nearby residence.
Days after the 21-year-old vanished without a trace, divers were spotted searching in the river under the Menands Bridge, but found "nothing to suggest" their latest missing man was in the water.
Now, nearly two months after
Matthew Labounty somehow fell off the face of the earth on December 25th, his missing persons case remains unsolved and inactive.
Then again, it did take four full months for Joshua Szostak's drowned corpse to finally surface in the Hudson ... in the next county.
