Page 16 - PPIAC Newsletter Mar-Apr 2022

Professional Private Investigators Association of Colorado

FIELD INVESTIGA-

TIONS
INVESTIGATING AN INTERNATIONAL MISSINGS PERSON CASE
Continued from page 15

shore of the lake back toward the hostel and was paddling while stand-
ing up. Shortly after they saw him, a storm came over the lake and
when one witness looked back at him 20 minutes later, he could no
longer see Abiodun. Another witness, Marcio, found Abiodun’s kayak
after the storm in an area of the lakeshore that was consistent with the
wind pattern of the storm and the location witnesses indicated on the
NNP map that they saw Abiodun.
Witch Doctors
There were several local shamans and witch doctors, called
“Curanderos,” who were known to provide ayahuasca supervision ser-
vices. We canvassed several of them, but none of them admitted to rec-
ognizing Abiodun, even after we paid for their “services.” One did
“divine,” after looking at the missing poster, that Abiodun was not
dead, but that he was hiding from “something bad,” and that “someone
had either violated him, or he violated someone.” It is unlikely that this
was the case.
Diving Expert

One witness who saw Abiodun on the far side of the lake, Manilo, is a
diver and spearfisherman, and informed us that the lake was so deep
that the water pressure was too great for bodies to resurface. Both Ma-
nilo and the lifeguard referred us to Tomar, a veteran Red Cross rescue
diver in the area, who had successfully recovered 464 bodies through-
out Nicaragua, some of which were at Apoyo Lagoon. He was widely
considered to be the most experienced diver in the region and had been
doing rescue diving since 1966. Tomar explained that when someone
drowns, barring currents, the body will sink for between 24-48 hours. It
will then rise again due to gasses that are produced by bacteria in the
body. However, if the body sinks below 40-60 feet, it will not resurface
because atmospheric, water, and absolute pressure are bearing down
on the body and the gasses are not sufficient to bring it back to the sur-
face. When that happens, the body will float back up to about 40 feet,
stay there for a while, and then sink back down to the bottom. Based
upon the police map and where Manilo said he saw Abiodun, he be-
lieved the depth of the lake to be 240 feet in that area. Tomar explained
that with surface-supplied diving equipment and special suits, one
could dive that deep, but that the Nicaraguan Navy was not equipped to
do that.
Hospital Canvassing

After we spoke to all the witnesses we could find, we went to the two
hospitals in the area. Both allowed us to walk through the hospital un-
der supervision of their legal officer and an armed security guard, to see

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The Informant March—April 2022 Issue