Missing FG Alert

[Mulboyne]

Andrew Lathrop
JS Online: Menasha man teaching in Japan goes missing
Japanese police have launched an investigation into the disappearance of a 20-year-old Menasha man who had been teaching English in Japan before he went missing three days ago. The American consul general in Sapporo, Marrie Schaefer, said this morning that Andrew Lathrop was last seen Monday morning in Hakodate, a port city on the island of Hokkaido. She said police began searching for Lathrop Wednesday evening after he failed to reunite with his travel companion as planned and his cell phone would not ring...more...

[tidbits]

I think very high possibility that he had drowned in the sea, is just that they haven't found his body.

[Big Booger]

I'd say lil' Kim got pissed off because of Robert J. and has decided Lathrop is geared for NK Engrish teaching.

[Charles]

I always like the part of the story where someone flies over from the US to look around the beach.

[Taro Toporific]

Hi, my name is Andrew Lathrop, but you can call me Andy. I am an Intern for LABO. I am 19 years old, but I turn 20 on October 19. I have been to Japan twice before this excursion. The first time was through LABO in 2001. I participated in the Nihongo program and the month long home-stay. In 2002 I received a scholarship from the US Senate to study at a high school in Fukuoka for six weeks. I studied Japanese for four years in high school and one year in college. I look forward to enjoying many new experiences and meeting many new people.

4-H International Intern..... Labo Intern, Andrew Lathrop is a Japanese and Finance major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. This 19-year-old sophomore ....

[/quote]

Wisconsin Man Missing In Japan
Andrew Lathrop Teaching English In Hakodate
AP News: 10:31 am CDT August 18, 2005
MENASHA, Wis. --The family of a young Menasha man who's missing in Japan will travel there Friday to try to get some answers....
Officers wouldn't begin investigating until Lathrop had been missing for 48 hours.....

MISSING AMERICAN IN JAPAN (website without any info) http://www.findandy.org/

[GuyJean]

[Taro Toporific]

Wisconsin family arrives in Japan to look for missing son
Aug 20 / Duluth News Tribune
TOKYO - The family of a Wisconsin man who went missing earlier this week arrived in Japan Saturday to look for him....
Lathrop's parents arrived in Tokyo Saturday with their two other children, and will fly to Hakodate Sunday, according to Shanti Laird, one of the foundation's coordinators.
Police in Hakodate said the search for Lathrop continued Saturday.
...

[dimwit]

Sorry I dont mean to be sick but I can't help myself -Why does this story conjure up memories of the Gashlycrumb Tinies?

[Taro Toporific]

[GuyJean]

[Taro Toporific]

[GuyJean]

[homesweethome]

GJ.

I am afraid you are right.

HSH

[dimwit]

i-Pod,camera et. al. were probably stolen by someone who came across them unguarded on the beach.

My guess is that he got caught in a rip tide (even the best of swimmers do this) and SWOOOSH.

[Taro Toporific]

Hope his parents understand he was happy and doing what he loved till the end..*

*(relative-of-deceased-stumbling-upon-FG dislcaimer)

Sounds like things will re,ain a mystery...

Family of U.S. man missing in Japan returning home after search
MENASHA, Wisconsin --The family of an American missing for more than a week in Japan is heading home after five days of searching there, a relative says.
"They're spent," Martin Eiden told the Post-Crescent newspaper for a story published Thursday. "They've been over there getting no sleep and participating in 12- to 14-hour daily searches. It's taken its toll."

[tidbits]

It is really a sad story. The current near the (side) of the island can be very strong (if there is a mainland/shore not far opposite) Island looked near but very dangerous to swim over...

If all else fail, the family can hire psychic detective.

[Taro Toporific]

A different kind of gaijin and more mystery.

Japan looks into teachers' disappearance in Pakistan
Zeenews.com, Bureau Report
Tokyo, Aug 26:Two Japanese Junior High School teachers were thought to be missing in Pakistan, and Japanese authorities were investigating, officials said today.

A ministry official said the two had been expected to return to Japan last week, but had not yet reached home. The Ministry had no other information on them.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing ministry rules.

The missing Japanese were Junior High school teachers -- a man and a woman -- who went to Pakistan on August 6 and were to return to Japan on August 19, said Akito Makihara, a education board official for Hiroshima prefecture in western Japan.

[Big Booger]

I don't travel anywhere alone here... It's not that I don't feel safe, I do. It's just I think I'd get in deep shit going solo here.

This kid drowned.... whether foul play was involved or not probably can never be resolved...

But if anyone tries to use his CC then the evidence trial might lend a new clue... Thieves seldom prove to be bright and make stupid mistakes like using stolen credit cards.

If the kid had been GPS'd chipped, they could have found him days ago.

http://practice.findlaw.com/archives/cyberlaw_1002.html

[Taro Toporific]

Japan looks into teachers' disappearance in Pakistan
Zeenews.com, Bureau Report
Tokyo, Aug 26:Two Japanese Junior High School teachers were thought to be missing in Pakistan, and Japanese authorities were investigating, officials said today.

Two Japanese Teachers Missing in Southern Afghanistan
2005-8-26 22:58:13 CRIENGLISH.com
Two Japanese schoolteachers have been missing since they entered southern Afghanistan on Aug. 8, a Japanese official said Friday.
The two teachers, a man and a woman, entered southern Afghanistan from the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Aug.8, and the Japanese officials lost track of them after that, Yoshikazu Isomura, the first secretary of Japanese embassy in Kabul, told Xinhua.
The embassy has informed the Afghan government on the issue, but the Afghan side could not give any information so far, said Yoshikazu...

[Papa-Lazarou]

I often wonder why familys bother to turn up to help for missing people, well unless they have an intimate knowlege of the area and have spent time bounty hunting or somthing.
Then i dont wonder at all

[L S]

*(relative-of-deceased-stumbling-upon-FG dislcaimer)

You crack me up GJ

PS - greeting from nice weateher PDX

[homesweethome]

[amdg]

I don't know, if you were going to go swimming obviously you wouldn't take your cell phone, i pod and wallet with you. What would you do with them if not lock them up with your clothes in a locker.

Duh, when there are no lockers around you put your wallet in your shoes, of course. But not just in your shoes, push it right up into the toe area because nobody ever looks there.

[Charles]

I don't know, if you were going to go swimming obviously you wouldn't take your cell phone, i pod and wallet with you. What would you do with them if not lock them up with your clothes in a locker. Put them someplace else? Bury them in the sand? Try to swim while holding them out of the water?

[homesweethome]

I don't know, if you were going to go swimming obviously you wouldn't take your cell phone, i pod and wallet with you. What would you do with them if not lock them up with your clothes in a locker. Put them someplace else? Bury them in the sand? Try to swim while holding them out of the water?

I get the point, but what gets me is that it should have, could have, would have been me many times in the course of my existance here, and I came here pretty much like he did, with not much more than myself and ended up with a Japanese kid on my shoulders wanting to be friends.

Just hate to give up hope, that's all.

[Taro Toporific]

Japan looks into teachers' disappearance in Pakistan
Zeenews.com, Bureau Report
Tokyo, Aug 26:Two Japanese Junior High School teachers were thought to be missing in Pakistan, and Japanese authorities were investigating, officials said today.
Two Japanese Teachers Missing in Southern Afghanistan
2005-8-26 22:58:13 CRIENGLISH.com
...

Bodies found in Afghanistan suspected to be of two missing Japanese
Mainichi Daily News, Sept 2
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Two bodies found in southern Afghanistan are suspected to be those of two Japanese tourists missing in the region since early last month. ....The two are junior high school teachers who went to Pakistan on Aug. 6 and were to return to Japan on Aug. 19. They apparently...more...

[Mulboyne]

From last month:

Capital Times: Missing UW student a mystery
...Friday night [Oct 28th], Lesley Lathrop went on Greta Van Susteren's Fox News show to talk about her son. Van Susteren asked: "Is it your thought that something, that there's been foul play, that there's been an accident or is he the type of young man that would simply take, you know, take a private trip for lack of a better way to describe it?" Lesley Lathrop replied: "We don't think he took a private trip. He was there with a good friend and she was waiting for him at the ferry to return back to the mainland. We have no proof of foul play but we have no proof of drowning. All we know right now is that he's actually missing." I reached Lesley Lathrop Monday at the family home in Menasha. "We just don't know what happened," she said.

[Mulboyne]

Sadly, it happens the other way around too:

Channel3000.com: Family, Friends Ask For Help To Find Missing Student

MADISON, Wis. -- Family members and friends are seeking the public's help as they work with police to find a 20-year-old Japanese student who disappeared last week. Kenji Ohmi disappeared nine days ago, and authorities have yet to find him. Madison police said that they are following up some leads and have made cursory searches of some general areas, WISC-TV reported. Amid the ongoing search, Ohmi's parents have come to Madison from Japan, and the man's friends and classmates at the Wisconsin English as a Second Language Institute are seeking the public's assistance. Those who attend the school, located on Pinckney Street, have formed a tight-knit community, and that has been shaken by Ohmi's disappearance, WISC-TV reported. Posters with Ohmi's face have been plastered throughout the area -- on bus shelters, light poles, and all over campus. Ohmi was last seen leaving his Hamilton Street apartment on Jan. 28 at 6:30 a.m. His roommate Ariel Alvarez said that he saw him 15 minutes earlier, and that he wasn't upset -- just sleepy...more...

[mr. sparkle]

Sadly, it happens the other way around too:

Now that's just too eerie.

[Mulboyne]

Sadly, it happens the other way around too:

Channel3000.com: Family, Friends Ask For Help To Find Missing Student

Channel3000: Missing Japanese Student Draws Little Media Attention

Critics are saying that a Japanese student in Madison who's been missing for three weeks isn't drawing media attention because he's neither female nor white. Kenji Ohmi, 20, was last seen Jan. 28, but his disappearance didn't generate the national media attention that then-University of Wisconsin-Madison student Audrey Seiler got in 2004. Seiler disappeared but was later found to have faked her abduction. The massive police search for her cost about $100,000. Aly ColDon, who teaches journalism ethics at the Florida Poynter Institute, said that Ohmi isn't female or attractive, two strikes in drawing media interest. But Madison Police spokesman Mike Hanson said that's incorrect. He said that Seiler's case was thought to be a case of abduction, whereas Ohmi's isn't. Hanson said that Seiler's parents also made public pleas on TV, but Ohmi's parents, who have flown over from Japan, have avoided press coverage...more...