The partner of an American Airlines flight attendant missing in Colombia has been left “shattered” over his disappearance – but is still clinging onto hope that he is still alive.
“I want to believe that he’s alive, and I want to continue believing that he’s alive, but throughout each day you wake up not knowing anything and it makes the days go by longer and slower,” Ernesto Carranza told CBS News Thursday.
Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, based out of Dallas-Fort Worth, failed to show up for the Medellín-Miami flight he was supposed to work Sunday morning — hours after going out in the city with his co-workers, and officials fear he may have been drugged.
Carranza’s concerns intensified when he couldn’t get hold of his 32-year-old lover that morning – despite him having a work and a personal cell phone – and noticed unusual cell phone pings that came from two locations.
“Both locations were nowhere near where he was supposed to sleep for the night,” he said.
A cell phone ping came from an Airbnb in Medellín’s El Poblado neighborhood – around 12 miles from the city’s airport.
Carranza spoke to his partner before he went out with his colleagues and told him, “have a good night, be safe, I love you.”
“And he just messaged back, ‘ok I love you back I’m going to go out and hang with my crews,’” he told NBC5.
He and his colleague met two men at a club and decided to “take the party to another place,” his pal Sharom Gil told the Colombian outlet Telemedellin.
“I’m missing a part of me. He’s the most joyful person to ever be around. We’re so lost right now,” she said, describing her anguish.
Gil said messages no longer reach his phone even though she knows the location.
Medellin authorities say the other people who were with the AA crew member have a track record of carrying out thefts using the incapacitating drug scopolamine, dubbed “Devil’s breath.”
Tourists in bars and nightclubs in major Colombian cities have had the tasteless, odorless drug mixed into drinks before being attacked, the US Embassy in Colombia warned.
“If ingested or exposed, scopolamine can render a victim unconscious for up to 24 hours or more,” the embassy said.
This makes them an easy target for perpetrators to attack.
Officials have identified cars and phones used by the suspects.
Missing person reports have been filed with the Colombian and American authorities – and the flight attendant’s dad has also traveled to Colombia.
The FBI may also coordinate with the embassy and local law enforcement, but ex-agent Ken Gray warned it would not lead the investigation.
“The FBI cannot do an investigation on their own inside a foreign country. Instead, they work with the police in that country, the national police usually in that country,” he said.
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