Claudia Kirschhoch

Case background and investigation

Claudia Kirschhoch was a 29-year-old travel writer from New York who had recently started work with Frommer's Travel Guides. According to the Jamaica Observer, she was one of a group of American travel writers who flew from New York to Jamaica on May 24, 2000, on their way to Cuba. The Cuban leg of the trip fell through, and the Sandals hotel chain offered the group accommodation in Jamaica instead. Kirschhoch and another writer, Tania Grossinger, chose to stay at the chain's Beaches Negril resort.

Grossinger later booked a flight home and left as scheduled. Kirschhoch stayed on. According to the Unsolved Mysteries case file, a lifeguard reported seeing her walking along a local beach, away from the resort, and she is listed as last seen on May 27, 2000. The Jamaica Observer reported that she missed her June 1 check-out date. Her parents, Fred and Mary Ann Kirschhoch, learned on June 2 that she had not returned to her office in New York.

The Unsolved Mysteries account says her passport, credit cards, cell phone and $180 in cash were found in the hotel safe, and that her clothes, apart from one bathing suit, were packed in her suitcase. It also reports that the resort's vehicle logbook for that month could not be found, that footage from a camera near her room had been recorded over, and that her room was cleared by staff before it could be examined. A Jamaican detective quoted in that account considered a drowning highly unlikely because the water in the area was shallow and the current weak.

Her parents brought in an American search dog team, and the FBI assisted. According to Unsolved Mysteries, the dog indicated her scent at the home and in the car of a resort bartender who had befriended her. Items were sent to the FBI laboratory and no blood was found. The man was questioned and given a polygraph, which was inconclusive, and the detective said police did not regard him as a suspect. CBS News reported in 2005 that he was never charged with anything.

A US$50,000 reward was offered. In February 2002 her parents met Jamaica's police commissioner in Kingston for an update, and in March 2003 the Jamaica Observer reported that police were still following up leads. CBS News reported that the family had her declared legally dead in May 2002 so that they could pursue a lawsuit against Sandals. The New York Post reported that the wrongful-death suit alleged the company failed to warn her of known risks and mishandled evidence; Sandals said it had supported the authorities throughout.

By 2005 the New York Post reported that the FBI had placed the matter in its cold case files. No one has been charged in connection with her disappearance, and no trace of Claudia Kirschhoch has been found.