FL FL - Lisa Bishop, 23, aboard ship Freedon, Miami, 1989

Fukiyama

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Gender:Female
Height: 5’2”
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Age at the time: 23

My condensed summary of the info at Unsolved.com:
Lisa took off with an acquaintance on the ship Freedon going from Miami to Haiti. After Lisa's family didn't hear from her, the Coast Guard investigated and found that the ship apparently never arrived at its intended destination. A wider inquiry of various ports around the Caribbean turned up nothing.

However, two weeks later, an underwater salvage diver saw Freedon enter the harbor at Grand Cayman Island. The ship stayed a day and was gone in the morning. Lisa's boyfriend met with the diver and checked out the harbor. Witnesses reported seeing a man matching the description of Florian accompanied by a short, dark-haired man.

After the boyfriend returned home, he spoke with the woman keeping Florian's possessions. Among the possessions was a picture apparently of the same dark-haired man, whom the woman identified as 'Phillipe'. The boyfriend later learned that it was Phillipe who had originally charted the voyage of Freedon to Haiti.

The woman holding Florian's possessions also told the boyfriend that, "The girl told me that he mentioned that he was involved in a large scale smuggling thing, and that something had gone wrong, and that they had gotten involved in something too deep that Lisa didn't know about and couldn't handle it. I feel that if Florian is out there, eventually, I'll find out about it, and I'll locate him."

Lisa's page at Unsolved.com has a summary of the original segment on her which first aired on Unsolved Mysteries on October 7, 1990. Photo images of Lisa, Florian and the ship may be found there as well. There is an interesting discussion of the case at Sitcoms Online.

Lisa has been mentioned in other threads, so I think it's time she had one of her own.
 
Bumping for Lisa.

Reading my condensed summary, I see I messed some details up. Just to clarify:

Lisa Bishop, left Miami bound for Haiti in the ship Freedon and was never seen again.
Lisa's boyfriend, the guy doing the investigating after she disappeared.
Florian, Lisa's acquaintance with whom Lisa left for Haiti on the Freedon.
Phillipe, a man seen with Florian at Grand Cayman sometime later; Freedon was in the harbor at the same time. Phillipe was also in a picture with Florian found in Florian's possessions.
Florian's girlfriend, holder of his possessions after he left, talked to Lisa's boyfriend and named Phillipe as the man with Florian in the picture, alleged that it was all a smuggling run chartered by Phillipe that Lisa couldn't handle after things went wrong..
 
It is possible Lisa could have become a victim of human trafficking. I don't believe the motive to get her out there on the ship was to prevent her from writing her story IMO. Sounds more like the club owner told her about this opportunity because she told him she was a writer and he may have been looking for women to traffic in the carribean with Florian. JMO of course.
 
I think human trafficking is definitely a possibility along with the drug deal gone bad angle.

As far as Namus, it is strange. But doesn't LE have to request the addition? In this case, I don't even know what the lead agency is. Coast Guard? Some local police force in Florida?
 
I think human trafficking is definitely a possibility along with the drug deal gone bad angle.

As far as Namus, it is strange. But doesn't LE have to request the addition? In this case, I don't even know what the lead agency is. Coast Guard? Some local police force in Florida?

She was last seen in Florida from what I've read and left out of Miami. They would have jurisdiction I'd think.
 
Bump.

The following is from the subreddit Unresolved Mysteries, Lisa Bishop, Florian Meyer-Bourch and the Freedon/Freeliaint. (With new information.). The author CLAIMS to have contacted Lisa's boyfriend and learned the following from the boyfriend.

NEW INFORMATION:
I have been in contact with Lisa Bishop's boyfriend, Paul Cornwell. He very helpfully cleared some points of interest up for me:
  • Florian Meyer-Bourch's real name was Florian Meyer-Borchert. He was originally from Hamburg. Paul was able to establish contact with his parents subsequent to his disappearance. Neither they nor any of Florian's acquaintances have heard from him since 1988. This lends further credence to the theory that the ship sank.
  • The woman with whom Florian stored his possessions was merely an acquaintance. Or, perhaps, an occasional fling. The question of Phillipe's involvement with smuggling was mostly conjecture and supposition on her behalf. But there were sources in Haiti who also hinted at the link.
  • Fascinatingly, the most recent sighting of the FREEDON came in as recently as 3/4 years ago, from a member of the Navy.
  • The Haitian woman in whose name the boat was registered was living in Miami, and is now deceased. Paul also spoke to the families of the Haitian crew members. They, too, have never been accounted for.
  • Paul also searched in vain for a white boat said to be used by the mysterious Phillipe to travel between the islands.

IF the info above is true, the details are interesting. That Florian's family was tracked down is interesting as well as the Haitian crew members' families. That the crew was never heard from again is new to me and very interesting.

IF the info is true, it fills in some gaps, but really doesn't offer anything definite to swing things one way or another between "ship sinking" and "ship taken and all aboard taken". That the ship is still being seen, if it is really the ship, is the most provocative, but it's definitely hard to put too much stock in sightings decades later.
 
if it were something shady/illegal - they may have needed these young women so the mission appeared as a vacation, not the illegal mission it really may have been. As soon as they make it through whatever port, they no longer need these women.

Who knows. So sad not knowing... I look at the huge list of names on thecharleyproject and think, wow, where are ALL these people?
 
Bump.

This is the original Unsolved Mysteries episode hosted by Robert Stack. The segment about Lisa and the crew of the Freedon is first up.

 

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