Guatemala - Nancy Ng, 29, from Monterey Park CA, missing during Yoga Retreat, 19 Oct 2023

[RickshawFan]

Despite the attorney’s account of what Blazek saw and did, the Ng family says they want to hear directly from the people who were with Nancy before she disappeared, so that they can work on piecing together her whereabouts.

“What we want is answers,” Nicky said. “We want to know what happened to Nancy that day and where to find her and we want that information to come from the only witness that was with Nancy at the time of her disappearance, and we want that through official channels.”

I have an enormous amount of sympathy for Nancy's family. But it doesn't seem like they will ever be satisfied by any explanation they are given. There'll always be some loose end to chase or some conspiracy theory explaining what "really" happened to Nancy.

Yes, it's all ratcheted up again on SM. Although I feel for the family of the drowned yoga vacationer, my sympathy long ago wore thin. This is so unkind to the real victims in this case, especially the witness-victim, but also all those yoga vacationers who had to deal with the aftermath both in Guatemala and on home shores.

As for expecting Lake Atitlán to produce a body, the local goddess of the deep doesn't like to do that, and rarely coughs up the dead. IMO when you go into wild areas, it's important to anticipate that nature might just start acting nature-y, and it might not go well for you.

All in all, I find a contradiction between being in the la-la land of yoga and hanging out in dangerous places where you need to be risk-aware for survival. Nature is gonna easily win in that scenario. My opinion. About my least favorite IG moment is a cliché yoga pose at Horseshoe Bend AZ.

 

[RickshawFan]

Iirc the family reached out immediately and cordially to what we are told was the only witness but got no response so I understand their frustration but yes agree I might have handled it differently.
I know I am in the minority but if I were the witness I also might have handled things differently.
Imo - communication from the start has been a huge issue in this case
All just my opinion.

IMO "communication" is in the eyes of the beholder. Sometimes people wish they knew more or don't like what they hear, but that's not from lack of 'communication". It seems as though, in this case, there was MORE than the usual communication you'd get from the police in a developing country. There is, actually, plenty of information!

I don't think you'd get any more than that in a US drowning case where someone dove off a duffer kayak into a deep lake with strong currents, the wind picking up, and no PFD. They'd be closing the case within hours.

I'd like the family to be thanking Guatemalan authorities for their diligence and sensitivity in handling a difficult situation, and for going above and beyond (which they did). I'd like the family to be thanking the victim-witness for providing all the information she did provide, and also to recognize the trauma which she must have suffered. I'd like to see the family thank the local organizer and fellow yoga-vacationers for the pleasure they gave to their daughter in her last days.

 

[Cedars]

Like others, I've followed several cases of people missing in nature, who still haven't been found. For example, the woman on a walking trip in Japan. It's a genuine mystery what happened to her that day. No one saw anything. Her family raised a large amount of money via news and SM, and went to Japan, and tried to leave no stone underturned to find the slightest clue or suggestion of what might have happened. But after 4 or so months of full on effort, they had to give up. Personally, I think a family like that would be so grateful to have an eyewitness report of accidental drowning. They could understand how it happened, that it was no one's fault, and they'd know where she was and that she was beyond rescuing. They could find peace.

I don't understand why this family disbelieves the witness.

Are they incapable of empathy for why she may not have been able to talk to them?

If they had been able to hear it from her first hand, would they have believed her? Or is there some element of denial that no amount of explanation could overcome? Are they listening to self-interested voices who are telling them to be suspicious?

Well, they are making a bad situation worse, IMO. I doubt it's what Nancy would have wanted, but so be it.

JMO

 

[dulcinea]

It's clear Nancy's family is hurting deeply. I hope they seek help in dealing with their grief. I don't think they will ever have the answers they are seeking and I hope someone can help them navigate their emotions. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain they are feeling. I understand them having questions and wanting to know all of the details. However, I feel they are looking for answers where there are none and going down a fruitless path.

 

[waldojabba]

IIRC, they reached out through the news media - immediately going public with what they wanted to say. The witness had barely had time to get home again.

I would have been more than happy to talk to the family - although once they said a single thing about in the media, I would have stopped. Being a witness to a terrible accident is traumatic.

The details that the witness did give were detailed, IMO and I'm not sure what else she could have said that would be helpful.

Our memories are different. Iirc the family did not immediately reach out to news media naming or shaming the witness. They tried to contact her directly and received no response. And then issued a plea thru media for the “witness” to get in touch with them. Only later did they name her in the press. They received a response from her lawyer only after publicly naming her. I will look for msm link but I think the response they finally received was almost a month after the drowning.
I have witnessed traumatic events so I get the devastation that trauma can have on those present witnessing the event. I also understand that we all react differently.
For me the lack of timely and clear communication is the core issue at hand. Not just from the witness to the drowning but from all those on the yoga retreat including the organizer.

JMO

Nancy Ng timeline: How teacher’s aide vanished on yoga retreat

Ng was kayaking on a lake, and authorities believe she drowned.

www.newsnationnow.com

Nancy Ng update: Kayak company speaks out after California woman goes missing in Guatemala

The owners of the company who rented out a kayak to a California woman in Guatemala before she went missing are speaking out, sharing details on what happened after the excursion was over.

abc7news.com

 

[AppleTreeGreen]

I feel a lot of sympathy for the Ng family and for the pain they are suffering from their loss. They just want to bring their daughter home and get closure and they are probably experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil and confusion, which is common with dealing with grief.

I also feel sympathy for CB too. It seemed like she did her best despite her own grief or trauma to do the right thing. IIRC, while she was still in her kayak at the site where she last saw NN she used one of her devices to let out a distress signal. The owners remember that LE was called and arrived after CB returned to the location of their business and she was extremely distraught from NN’s drowning. IMO l think it is highly possible that CB gave a statement to LE but it wasn’t written down or recorded at the time. The FBI seem to concur with CB’s lawyer statement that she was cooperative in their endeavors to interview witnesses. Interviews by search/recovery teams seemed to also indicate they had a general idea where on the lake NN most likely tragically drowned. This may further indicate that witnesses were cooperating and providing them with the needed or missing information.

I can agree or understand a lot of commenters about being willing to talk to the family. I would also understand or can agree with those that would wait for perhaps more official channels like the US embassy, the search and rescue teams or FBI spoke to the family first (perhaps they have more sensitivity training or could give the information more coherently), especially if I am still very emotionally distraught, and then reach out to them directly afterwards. I wouldn’t want my own emotional distress or inability to communicate coherently to add to the family’s own pain or confusion/distress. JMO

It does sound like LE in Guatemala and all the search and rescue teams are doing their bests. I do hope the Ng family get to bring their beloved daughter and sister Nancy home. I recall CB mentioning in her statement that the location on the lake where Nancy disappeared was deep and had a rough ride that morning. I wonder if perhaps that plays a factor in the length of time it is taking to find her? This case somewhat reminds me of Naya Rivera’s sadly.

 

[RickshawFan]

What's your source that the FBI is raising questions? The article that @charminglane linked to says that the FBI "is not aware of any evidence of foul play."

As for the helicopter guy, his statement makes no sense to me. He's searching the surface of the lake. But surely, any body would be at the bottom by now. I know corpses often float as they decompose but after a few days they will get waterlogged and sink. Unless he's using submarines I don't see how any search would be effective.

In any case, there was an eyewitness to Nancy's drowning, a public defender from San Bernardino County. I guess the theory is that she's in on the human trafficking and the cover up? I do fear that this poor woman who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time will now be harassed and threatened by the various conspiracy theories that are popping up.

Lake Atitlán has a history of not giving up the dead, too. It's extremely deep.

Yes, on the poor public defender here. She's been victimized a thousand times over because she happened to be in the area where someone she'd barely met dove off a SUP into deep lake in a foreign country.

 

[RickshawFan]

Our memories are different. Iirc the family did not immediately reach out to news media naming or shaming the witness. They tried to contact her directly and received no response. And then issued a plea thru media for the “witness” to get in touch with them. Only later did they name her in the press. They received a response from her lawyer only after publicly naming her. I will look for msm link but I think the response they finally received was almost a month after the drowning.
I have witnessed traumatic events so I get the devastation that trauma can have on those present witnessing the event. I also understand that we all react differently.
For me the lack of timely and clear communication is the core issue at hand. Not just from the witness to the drowning but from all those on the yoga retreat including the organizer.

JMO

Nancy Ng timeline: How teacher’s aide vanished on yoga retreat

Ng was kayaking on a lake, and authorities believe she drowned.

www.newsnationnow.com

Nancy Ng update: Kayak company speaks out after California woman goes missing in Guatemala

The owners of the company who rented out a kayak to a California woman in Guatemala before she went missing are speaking out, sharing details on what happened after the excursion was over.

abc7news.com

The victim witnessed a horrible event. She reported what she witnessed. What would you expect a traumatized victim to do, other than what she did?

There is no formal evidence (local LE is clear to the contrary) that there was a lack of "timely and clear communication". The witness-victim cited the family and media version as incorrect, which is why she finally had to have an attorney speak for her.

IMO in this universe, we're not entitled to lambaste someone because they don't report the details of the story in quite the way we wanted, especially when they've been on hand for what must have been an extremely traumatizing event, alone.

If we witness a fatal car accident because we happen to be at the same intersection, are we at fault because we tell police we observed the survivor car weaving and speeding? Of course not! Might we remember more details sometime later, once the immediate moment subsided, or if someone asked us a specific question? Sure! Do we have an obligation to provide a witness statement? No! Does that make us poor communicators? Of course not.

 

[RickshawFan]

I just wish they didn't "need" to publicly criticize the one person who tried to help NN out of her situation. I do understand that families want answers - I would be the same way. But if they wanted the eyewitness to talk to them, they have handled that aspect poorly from the beginning, IMO. That person is a victim as well, IMO.

IMO the survivor-witness is the only victim here. Otherwise, we're in a strange place where someone who dove off an SUP in a deep foreign lake in dangerous conditions and subsequently drowned was victimizing themselves. That makes no sense to me. This is a sui generis event.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Nancy Ng and Christina Blazek at the Be the Change yoga retreat at Lake Atitlan, in Guatamala, in Oct. 2023

For San Bernardino County Deputy Public Defender Christina Blazek — believed to be the last person to have seen Ng alive — the nightmare began about a month later. That’s when Ng’s family and one of its representatives publicly disclosed Blazek’s name and accused her of being silent and uncooperative in the search for Ng’s body, as well as hindering a Guatemalan police investigation.

Not only did Blazek give a statement to police at a Guatemalan police station following Ng’s reported drowning, Gardner said, but she also reached out to the FBI and gave a detailed statement to two agents at his office in downtown San Bernardino on Nov. 7, about a week prior to the public release of Blazek’s name and the name of retreat organizer Eduardo “Eddy” Rimada.

“The entire purpose for her voluntarily reaching out to the FBI and giving a statement was to assist with the investigation and make certain that investigators had all the information that Ms. Blazek had to give,” Gardner said. “So when she was subsequently accused of withholding information a week later, it simply was not true and it created a firestorm of unfair online criticism and harassment of Ms. Blazek.”

The FBI maintains it is not aware of any evidence of foul play, that witnesses have been cooperative with authorities, and that the agency is offering resources to the Guatemalan authorities to help in the search. Agency spokesperson Laura Eimiller said in an email Friday that the Ng family has been advised that the State Department is their current point of contact.

Nancy Ng, left, and sister Nicky Ng in Monterey Park in July 2023

After California woman went missing in Guatemala, San Bernardino lawyer facing death threats

Life has been turned upside down for a San Bernardino deputy public defender who was the last person to see Nancy Ng of Monterey Park alive during a kayak excursion.

www.mercurynews.com

 

[ch_13]

Nancy Ng and Christina Blazek at the Be the Change yoga retreat at Lake Atitlan, in Guatamala, in Oct. 2023

For San Bernardino County Deputy Public Defender Christina Blazek — believed to be the last person to have seen Ng alive — the nightmare began about a month later. That’s when Ng’s family and one of its representatives publicly disclosed Blazek’s name and accused her of being silent and uncooperative in the search for Ng’s body, as well as hindering a Guatemalan police investigation.

Not only did Blazek give a statement to police at a Guatemalan police station following Ng’s reported drowning, Gardner said, but she also reached out to the FBI and gave a detailed statement to two agents at his office in downtown San Bernardino on Nov. 7, about a week prior to the public release of Blazek’s name and the name of retreat organizer Eduardo “Eddy” Rimada.

“The entire purpose for her voluntarily reaching out to the FBI and giving a statement was to assist with the investigation and make certain that investigators had all the information that Ms. Blazek had to give,” Gardner said. “So when she was subsequently accused of withholding information a week later, it simply was not true and it created a firestorm of unfair online criticism and harassment of Ms. Blazek.”

The FBI maintains it is not aware of any evidence of foul play, that witnesses have been cooperative with authorities, and that the agency is offering resources to the Guatemalan authorities to help in the search. Agency spokesperson Laura Eimiller said in an email Friday that the Ng family has been advised that the State Department is their current point of contact.

Nancy Ng, left, and sister Nicky Ng in Monterey Park in July 2023

After California woman went missing in Guatemala, San Bernardino lawyer facing death threats

Life has been turned upside down for a San Bernardino deputy public defender who was the last person to see Nancy Ng of Monterey Park alive during a kayak excursion.

www.mercurynews.com

Reading back over the early pages of this thread, It's interesting just how much of the initial reporting was incorrect.
- The yoga group waited a day to report her missing.
- They all clammed up and wouldn't speak to anyone.
- They changed their flights and left immediately.
- When they returned home they wouldn't answer any questions.
- There's no proof that Nancy even went kayaking.
- The FBI has been raising questions.

It doesn't seem like any of that was true. Definitely, a lot of misinformation was being spread in the media in the immediate aftermath of Nancy's disappearance.

 

[10ofRods]

Yes, it's all ratcheted up again on SM. Although I feel for the family of the drowned yoga vacationer, my sympathy long ago wore thin. This is so unkind to the real victims in this case, especially the witness-victim, but also all those yoga vacationers who had to deal with the aftermath both in Guatemala and on home shores.

As for expecting Lake Atitlán to produce a body, the local goddess of the deep doesn't like to do that, and rarely coughs up the dead. IMO when you go into wild areas, it's important to anticipate that nature might just start acting nature-y, and it might not go well for you.

All in all, I find a contradiction between being in the la-la land of yoga and hanging out in dangerous places where you need to be risk-aware for survival. Nature is gonna easily win in that scenario. My opinion. About my least favorite IG moment is a cliché yoga pose at Horseshoe Bend AZ.

You make such excellent points. You put into actual words what I'd been feeling about yoga retreats vs. deep water kayaking adventure. I know exactly what you're talking about at Horseshoe Bend, and it's also true at Grand Canyon. It's so hard on the rangers, the witnesses, the rescuers, etc.

People drown in similar misadventures in much smaller, more shallow lakes - and for the same reason (inability to get back onto their craft, whether kayak or boat).

It's very sad. If I had to blame anyone, I'd blame the concessionaire for not making it mandatory to at least be wearing a life vest upon pick-up of kayak and upon departure (the kayak concession where I have rented does so require). Yes, it might cut down on business. But still.

IMO>

 

[Cedars]

It's very sad. If I had to blame anyone, I'd blame the concessionaire for not making it mandatory to at least be wearing a life vest upon pick-up of kayak and upon departure (the kayak concession where I have rented does so require). Yes, it might cut down on business. But still.

IMO>

But you know what? The charm of places like Atitlan and many other non-Western countries, is that people aren't as obsessed and anxious about safety as we are trained to be. It creates a sense of freedom, relaxation, that we never experience. I won't dwell on it, because it horrifies so many people to even think of riding in the back of a pickup along a jungly road, but IMO it's an amazing exhilaration to experience what life could be like, used to be like, before fear and bureacracy and regulations swallowed us up into paranoia. Accident, sickness and death are just realities of life, however much we try to regulate them out of existence.

IMO, that's what captivated Nancy. We're here for a good time, not a long time.

JMO