Two New Jersey residents were reported missing in the middle of a vacation to Barbados, police said, and now a jet ski that the couple rented has been located.
Oscar Suarez and Magdalena Devil were last seen renting a jet ski on June 24th. When they left, they were both wearing life jackets.
USA Today reports:
The watercraft was recovered about 250 miles northwest of Barbados, off the coast of Guadeloupe by a French navy ship, Roy Morris, press secretary to Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, confirmed in a statement to CNN. USA TODAY has reached out to Mottley’s office for comment.
Nation News, a Barbados newspaper, reported that French authorities notified the Barbados Coast Guard Saturday that they believed they’d found the jet ski involved in their search-and-rescue operation and assigned a rescue boat to retrieve the watercraft.
Morris confirmed that the registration number of the watercraft matched that of the one rented to Magdalena Devil, 25, and Oscar Suarez, 32, near Holetown Beach, Barbados, on June 24. The couple has not been seen since.
When they did not return with the jet ski on June 24, the local police and Coast Guard mounted a search operation that included the U.S. Air Force and covered 600 nautical miles. Officials called off their search on July 2.
June 24: N.J. couple reported missing in Barbados after renting jet ski
In a previous interview with NorthJersey.com, Suarez’s cousin, Reynaldo Huaman, said the couple had been together for about a year.
“The family’s obviously still holding out the hope that we find some clues, some lead that gives us some sense of where they could have gone,” Huaman said, “anything that may tell us anything about their whereabouts.”
The couple arrived in Barbados on June 22 and were planning to leave June 29. They were staying at Discovery Bay hotel in Trents Holetown St. James. They did not check back into the hotel, police said
Fundraisers, including a GoFundMe page and a T-shirt sale, were started to assist the family or the investigation if possible. Though the search has been called off, Huaman said the family remained in contact with Barbados police.
Anyone with information about Suarez and Devil’s whereabouts can contact Holetown police at 246-419-1700 or their local police department.
