A presumption of death occurs when a person is thought to be dead by a group of people despite the absence of direct proof of the person's death, such as the finding of remains (e.g., a
corpse
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stu ...
or skeleton) attributable to that person. Such a presumption is typically made by an individual when a person has been
missing
Missing or The Missing may refer to:
Film
* ''Missing'' (1918 film), an American silent drama directed by James Young
* ''Missing'' (1982 film), an American historical drama directed by Costa-Gavras
* ''Missing'' (2007 film) (''Vermist''), a Bel ...
for an extended period and in the absence of any evidence that person is still alive – or after a much shorter period, but where the circumstances surrounding a person's disappearance overwhelmingly support the belief that the person is dead (e.g., an
airplane crash
An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of fl ...
).
A declaration that a person is dead resembles other forms of "preventive adjudication", such as the
declaratory judgment
A declaratory judgment, also called a declaration, is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal mat ...
. Different jurisdictions have different legal standards for obtaining such a declaration and in some jurisdictions a presumption of death may arise after a person has been missing under certain circumstances and a certain amount of time.
Facts, circumstances, and the "balance of probabilities"
In most jurisdictions, it is usually necessary to obtain a
court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out o ...
directing the registration to issue a
death certificate
A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...
in the absence of a physician's certification that an identified individual has died. However, if there is
circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need ...
that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the individual is deceased on the
balance of probabilities
In a legal dispute, one party has the burden of proof to show that they are correct, while the other party had no such burden and is presumed to be correct. The burden of proof requires a party to produce evidence to establish the truth of facts ...
, jurisdictions may agree to issue death certificates without any such order. For example,
passengers and crew of the
RMS ''Titanic'' who were not rescued by the
RMS ''Carpathia'' were declared legally dead soon after ''Carpathia'' arrived at New York City. More recently, death certificates for those who perished in the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
were issued by the
State of New York
New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. state ...
within days of the tragedy. The same is usually true of soldiers
missing after a major battle, especially if the enemy keeps an accurate record of its
prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
.
If there is not sufficient evidence that death has taken place, a legal declaration of such may take longer, as simple absence does not necessarily prove death. The requirements for declaring an individual legally dead may vary depending on numerous details including the following:
* The jurisdiction the individual lived in before death
* The jurisdiction where they are presumed to have died
* How the individual is thought to have died (murder, suicide,
accident
An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...
, etc.)
* The balance of probabilities that make it more likely than not that the individual is dead
Most countries have a set period of time (seven years in many
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
jurisdictions) after which an individual is presumed dead if there is no evidence to the contrary. However, if the missing individual is the owner of a significant estate, the court may delay ordering the issuing of a death certificate if there has been no real effort to locate the missing person. If the death is thought to have taken place in
international waters
The terms international waters or transboundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water (or their drainage basins) transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regiona ...
or in a location without a centralized and reliable police force or vital statistics registration system, other laws may apply.
Legal aspects
China
The Chinese law treats declaratory judgment of death and disappearance differently. Relevant provisions can be found in Section 3 ("Declaration of Disappearance and Declaration of Death"), Chapter 2 ("Natural Persons") of the ''General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China'' enacted in 2017.
In terms of the declaration of disappearance, where a natural person has disappeared for two years, an interested party may apply to a people's court for a declaration of absence of the natural person. The period of disappearance of a natural person shall be counted from the day when he or she is not heard from. If a person disappears during a war, the period of disappearance shall be counted from the day when the war ends or from the date of absence as confirmed by the relevant authority.
As for the declaration of death, where a natural person falls under any of the following circumstances, an interested party may apply to a people's court for a declaration of death of the natural person:
# The natural person has disappeared for four years;
# The natural person has disappeared for two years from an accident.
Where a person has disappeared from an accident, and it is impossible for the person to survive the accident as certified by the relevant authority, an application for a declaration of death of the person is not subject to the two-year period.
In the event of contradictory applications for declaration, meaning that both an application for a declaration of death and an application for a declaration of absence of the same natural person are filed by the interested parties with a people's court, the people's court shall declare the death of the person if the conditions for a declaration of death as set out in this Law are met.
The Chinese law specifically talks about the return of the absentee. The validity of the previous declaratory judgment of death is not imperiled by the sheer fact of return. The absentee or interested party (or parties) must apply for the revocation of the said declaratory judgment, then it can be annulled. The legal consequence of revoking declaratory judgment is essentially about restoration, i.e. the return of property and restoration of marriage. Chinese law restores marriage between the returned absentee and his or her spouse, providing that the spouse has not remarried or declared unwillingness of restoring marriage. This is quite unusual among the legal regimes around the world.
Germany
Conditions for declaration of death according to the disappearance law (''Verschollenheitsgesetz''):
* General disappearance: 10 years from the end of the year with the last sign of life (5 years for persons older than 80 years)
* Seafaring, ship's sinking: 6 months after sinking or other event causing the disappearance, for example: gone overboard (maritime disappearance)
* Plane crash: 3 months after crash (airflight disappearance)
* Other disappearance under life-threatening circumstances: 1 year from the end of the mortal danger
India
Presumption of death is governed by sections 107 and 108 of the Evidence Act, which allows for presumption of death for a person missing for 7 years to be raised in appropriate proceedings before the court.
Ireland
If there is strong evidence a missing person is dead the coroner may request an inquest under Section 23 of the Coroners Act 1962. If the Minister for Justice grants the inquest then the person may be declared legally dead if that is the outcome of the inquest. As an alternative an application may be made to the high court; before 1 November 2019, the general position was that a person needed to be missing for at least 7 years before a person could be treated as dead in the eyes of the law, but exceptionally may be earlier if there is strong implication from the circumstances the person is dead. This meant that their next of kin were denied any bereavement-related entitlements under any pension, life insurance or social welfare scheme. Since 1 November 2019, when the Civil Law (Presumption of Death) Act 2019, commenced, a court can make a "presumption of death order" if it is satisfied that the circumstances suggest that the missing person's death is either virtually certain, or highly probable. If such an order is made and not successfully appealed, it has the same status as a death certificate.
Italy
It takes ten years to declare a missing person dead. After ten years from someone's disappearance, a motion to declare the person legally dead can be filed in court.
Poland
Declaration of presumed death is stipulated in articles 29–32 of the Polish Civil Code and pronounced as a court judgment. In general, a period of 10 years is required to pass for a legal declaration to be made, with the following exceptions:
* no one can be declared dead prior to the end of the year in which they turn, or would turn, 23 years of age;
* the minimum time period is reduced to 5 years if the person would have turned at least 70 years old at the time of the declaration;
* if it is overwhelmingly likely that the person would have been a victim of an air or sea disaster or any other "exceptional circumstances", the period of time of the disappearance is reduced to 6 months, however if the vessel is presumably lost, the time is counted from one year after what would have been the scheduled day of arrival, or from two years after its last known whereabouts;
* if a person is reported missing under other life-threatening circumstances than the above, the time period becomes one year since the conclusion of the life-threatening incident.
A court's declaration of death comes into effect retroactively and is subject to legal consequences from before the date of the declaration, going back to the assumed date of death, as declared by the court.
Russia
According to article 45 of
Civil Code of Russia
The Civil Code of the Russian Federation (russian: Гражданский кодекс Российской Федерации, frequently abbreviated 'ГК РФ') is the prime source of civil law for the Russian Federation. The Russian Civil Law ...
, a person may be declared dead only by a court decision, on the following grounds:
* They have been missing for 5 years
* If the person disappeared under life-threatening circumstances, which made it likely that he or she died from an accident, that person can be assumed dead after 6 months
* A military or civil person, who disappeared during a military conflict, can be declared dead no earlier than 2 years after the conflict is over
A legal date of death is considered to be the date when the court decision declaring person dead was made. If a person disappeared under life-threatening circumstances, the day of his or her actual disappearance may also be considered the legal date of death.
The declaration of death by the court has the same legal consequences as if the fact of death was proven:
*
Dependant
A dependant is a person who relies on another as a primary source of income. A common-law spouse who is financially supported by their partner may also be included in this definition. In some jurisdictions, supporting a dependant may enabl ...
s of the person become eligible for the state pension
* Assets can be
inherited
* If the person was married, the marriage legally ends
* Personal obligations are terminated
If such decision was a mistake and the person later returns, the decision is nullified and the person becomes eligible to request most of his assets back. However, if the husband or wife of such person married again, the marriage will not be restored. His funds and securities, taken under bona fide circumstances, also cannot be requested back.
United Kingdom
England and Wales
= Before 2013
=
Prior to 2013,
English law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
Principal elements of English law
Although the common law has, historically, be ...
generally assumed a person was dead if, after seven years:
* There was no evidence that they were still alive.
* The people most likely to have heard from them had no contact.
* Inquiries made of that person had no success.
[House of Commons Justice Committee, Presumption of Death, Twelfth Report of Session 2010–12 Report, February 7, 2012]
This was a rebuttable presumption at common law – if the person subsequently appeared, the law no longer considered them dead.
Otherwise, courts could have granted leave to applicants to swear that a person was dead (within or after the seven-year period).
For example, an executor may have made such an application so they could have been granted probate for the will. This kind of application would only have been made sooner than seven years where death was probable, but not definitive (such as an unrecovered plane crash at sea), following an inquest (see below). Such an application was specific to the court where it was made – thus separate applications had to be made at a coroner's inquest, for proceedings under the Matrimonial Causes and Civil Partnership Acts (for remarriage), for
probate
Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the sta ...
, and under the Social Security Act.
= Presumption of Death Act 2013
=
These processes were not considered satisfactory, and so in February–March 2013, the Presumption of Death Act 2013 was passed to simplify this process. The new act, which is based on the Presumption of Death (Scotland) Act 1977, allows applying to the
High Court to declare a person presumed dead. This declaration is conclusive and cannot be appealed. It is recorded on a new Register of Presumed Deaths, and has the same effect as a registration of death. Death is taken to occur on (a) the last day that they could have been alive (if the court is satisfied that they are dead), or (b) the day seven years after the date they were last seen (if death is presumed by the elapse of time).
In
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
, if the authorities believe there should be an
inquest
An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coro ...
, the local
coroner
A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...
files a report. This may be done to help a family receive a death certificate that may bring some closure. An inquest strives to bring any suspicious circumstances to light. The coroner then applies to the
Secretary of State for Justice
The secretary of state for justice, also referred to as the justice secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Justice. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the Un ...
, under the Coroners Act 1988 section 15, for an inquest with no body. The seven years rule only applies in the
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...
on the settlement of an estate. According to a spokesman for the
Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry.
Lists of current ministries of justice
Named "Ministry"
* Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia)
* Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan)
* Ministry of Just ...
, the number of requests received each year is fewer than ten, but few of these are refused. Without a body, an inquest relies mostly on evidence provided by the police, and whether senior officers believe the missing person is dead. One notable person presumed dead under the Act is the
7th Earl of Lucan (Lord Lucan), who was last seen alive in 1974 (although there have been numerous alleged sightings since that time), and whose death certificate was issued in February 2016.
The incidence of presumed death in England and Wales is considered low – in September 2011, it was estimated that only 1% of the 200,000 missing persons each year remained unaccounted for after 12 months, with a cumulative total of 5,500 missing persons by September 2011.
Scotland
In Scotland, legal aspects of the presumption of death are outlined in the Presumption of Death (Scotland) Act 1977. If a person lived in Scotland on the date they were last known to be alive, authorities can use this act to declare the person legally dead after the standard period of seven years.
United States
The declaration of a missing person as legally dead falls under the jurisdiction of the
individual states unless there is a reason for the federal government to have jurisdiction (e.g. military personnel
missing in action
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, ex ...
).
People who disappear are typically called ''missing'', or sometimes ''absent''. Several criteria are evaluated to determine whether a person may be declared legally dead:
* The party normally must have been missing from their home or usual residence for an extended period, most commonly seven years
* Their absence must have been continuous and inexplicable (e.g. the person did not say they had found a new job and were moving far away)
* There must have been no communication from the party with those people most likely to hear from them during the period the person has been missing
* There must have been a diligent but unsuccessful search for the person and/or diligent but unsuccessful
inquiry
An inquiry (also spelled as enquiry in British English) is any process that has the aim of augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. A theory of inquiry is an account of the various types of inquiry and a treatment of the ...
into their whereabouts.
Professor Jeanne Carriere, in "The Rights of the Living Dead: Absent Persons in
Civil Law" (published in the ''Louisiana Law Review''), stated that as of 1990, the number of such cases in the United States was estimated at between 60,000 and 100,000.
["The rights of the living dead: absent persons in the civil law". Jeanne Carriere, 50 La. L. Rev. 901, 1990]
According to Edgar Sentell, a retired senior vice-president and
general counsel
A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department.
In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...
of Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, almost all states recognize the presumption of death, by
statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...
or judicial recognition of the
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
rule. Some states have amended their statutes to reduce the seven-year period to five consecutive years missing, and some, such as
Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, have reduced the period to four years.
["The missing insured and the life insurance death claim"]
. C. Edgar Sentell, ''FDCC Quarterly'', Winter 2004]
If someone disappears, those interested can file a
petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication.
In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offici ...
to have them declared legally dead. They must prove by the criteria above that the person is in fact dead. There are
constitutional
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princip ...
limitations to these procedures: The presumption must arise only after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed. The absent person must be notified. Courts permit notifying claimants by publication. Adequate
safeguards
A safeguard, in international law, is a restraint on international trade or economic development to protect communities from development aggression or home industries from foreign competition.
In the World Trade Organization (WTO), a member may t ...
concerning property provisions must be made in the case that an absent person shows up.
Some states require those who receive the missing person's assets to return them if the person turned out to be alive. If a person is declared dead when only missing, their estate is distributed as if they were dead. In some cases, the presumption of death can be rebutted. According to Sentell, courts will consider evidence that the absent person was a fugitive from
justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
, had money troubles, had a bad relationship, or had no family ties or connection to a community as reasons not to presume death.
A person can be declared legally dead after they are exposed to "imminent peril" and fail to return—as in a plane crash, as portrayed in the movie ''
Cast Away
''Cast Away'' is a 2000 American survival drama film directed and produced by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, and Nick Searcy. Hanks plays a FedEx troubleshooter stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in ...
''. In these cases courts generally assume the person was killed, even though the usual waiting time to declare someone dead has not elapsed. Sentell also says, "The element of peril accelerates the presumption of death." This rule was enacted after the
attack on the World Trade Center, so that authorities could release
death certificates
A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...
. Although people presumed dead sometimes turn up alive, it is not as common as it used to be. In one case where this occurred, a man named John Burney disappeared in 1976 while having financial problems, and later reappeared in December 1982. His company and wife had already received the death benefits—so, on returning, the
life insurance
Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...
company sued him, his wife, and his company. In the end, the court ruled Burney's actions fraudulent.
Reappearance
Missing persons have, on rare occasions, been found alive after being declared legally dead (see below).
Prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold priso ...
, people with
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
es who become
homeless
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
, and, in extremely rare circumstances
kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...
victims, may be located years after their disappearance. Some people have even
faked their deaths to avoid paying taxes, debts, and so on.
Notable cases
*
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson ( 1565 – disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.
In 1607 and 160 ...
, English explorer, left adrift after a mutiny in 1611.
*
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book ''The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by t ...
, publisher, author, disappeared during the Mexican Revolution in 1913.
*
Arthur Irwin
Arthur Albert Irwin (February 14, 1858 – July 16, 1921), nicknamed "Doc", "Sandy", "Cutrate" or "Foxy", was a Canadian-American shortstop and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the late nineteenth century. He played regularly i ...
, former
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
player, presumably fell (or jumped) from boat sailing from New York City to
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
in 1921.
*
Joseph Force Crater
Joseph Force Crater (January 5, 1889 – disappeared August 6, 1930; declared legally dead June 6, 1939) was a New York State Supreme Court Justice who mysteriously vanished amid a political scandal. He was last seen leaving a restaurant on West ...
, New York City judge, disappeared on the way to a play in 1930, declared dead in 1939.
*
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...
, pioneer, aviator, disappeared during a transoceanic flight in 1937.
*
Ettore Majorana
Ettore Majorana (,, uploaded 19 April 2013, retrieved 14 December 2019 ; born on 5 August 1906 – possibly dying after 1959) was an Italian theoretical physicist who worked on neutrino masses. On 25 March 1938, he disappeared under mysteri ...
, Italian
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
, disappeared at sea in 1938.
*
Richard Halliburton
Richard Halliburton (January 9, 1900 – Declared death in absentia, presumed dead after March 24, 1939) was an American travel writing, travel writer and adventurer who swam the length of the Panama Canal and paid the lowest toll in its hi ...
, author and voyager, Pacific Ocean, lost at sea in 1939.
*
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...
, French aviator and author, disappeared July 31, 1944. Plane found in the sea in 2000.
*
Glenn Miller
Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...
, jazz musician/bandleader, whose plane disappeared over the English Channel, December 15, 1944.
*
Paula Jean Welden
Paula Jean Welden (born October 19, 1928; disappeared December 1, 1946) was an American college student who disappeared while walking on Vermont's Long Trail hiking route. Local sheriffs were criticized for errors made in the investigation, which ...
, American college student who disappeared while walking on Vermont's Long Trail hiking route, December 1, 1946.
*
Vincent Mangano
Vincent Mangano (born Vincenzo Giovanni Mangano; ; March 28, 1888 – disappeared April 19, 1951, declared dead October 30, 1961) was an Italian-born mobster also known as "Vincent The Executioner" as named in a Brooklyn newspaper, and the head o ...
,
Sicilian-American
Sicilian Americans (Sicilian language, Sicilian: ''Sìculu-miricani; Italian language, Italian: Siculoamericani'') are Americans of Italian people, Italian Sicilians, Sicilian birth or ancestry. They are a large ethnic group in the United States.
...
mobster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
, disappeared April 1951 and declared dead on October 30, 1961.
*
David Kenyon Webster
David Kenyon Webster (2 June 1922 – disappeared 9 September 1961) was an American soldier, journalist and author. During World War II he was a private with E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Div ...
, author, disappeared off coast of California in 1961, was known primarily as a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
soldier with
Easy Company
E Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagles", is a company in the United States Army. The company was referred to as "Easy" after the radio call for "E" in the ph ...
, as portrayed in the
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
miniseries
''Band of Brothers''.
*
Michael Rockefeller
Michael Clark Rockefeller (May 18, 1938 – presumed to have died November 19, 1961) was the fifth child of New York Governor and former U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He was the grandson of American financier John D. Rockefeller J ...
,
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
,
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
, disappeared while canoeing in 1961.
*
Joe Gaetjens
Joseph Edouard Gaetjens ( ; , 1924 – , 1964 resumed was a soccer player who played as a center forward. Born in Haiti, he also played one match for Haiti in a World Cup qualifier against Mexico before switching to represent the United ...
, Haitian
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...
, kidnapped by
Papa Doc's
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
in 1964.
*
Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt (5 August 190817 December 1967) was an Australian politician who served as the 17th prime minister of Australia from 1966 until his presumed death in 1967. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party.
Holt was born in S ...
,
Prime Minister of Australia
The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the Australian Government, federal government of Australia and is also accountable to Parliament of A ...
,
presumed to have drowned in 1967.
*
Donald Crowhurst
Donald Charles Alfred Crowhurst (1932 – July 1969) was a British businessman and amateur sailor who disappeared while competing in the ''Sunday Times'' Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race. Soon after he started th ...
, businessman, suspected to have committed suicide in 1969 by jumping overboard from his boat. The boat was later found adrift and empty.
*
Sean Flynn and
Dana Stone
Dana Hazen Stone (April 18, 1939; disappeared April 6, 1970) was an American photojournalist who worked for CBS, United Press International, and Associated Press during the Vietnam War.
Biography
Stone first traveled to Vietnam in 1965. Befo ...
, American
photojournalist
Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...
s. On April 6, 1970, Flynn and Stone disappeared while on assignment in
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...
. Their remains have never been found. The current consensus is that they were held captive for over a year before they were killed by
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. ...
in June 1971.
*
Hale Boggs
Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. (February 15, 1914 – disappeared October 16, 1972; declared dead December 29, 1972) was an American Democratic politician and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the House ma ...
and
Nick Begich
Nicholas Joseph Begich Sr. (born April 6, 1932 – disappeared October 16, 1972; declared dead December 29, 1972) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Alaska. He is presumed to hav ...
, American politicians, whose airplane disappeared in Alaska in 1972.
*
Roberto Clemente
Roberto Enrique Clemente Walker (; August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972) was a Puerto Rican professional baseball right fielder who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his early death, he was pos ...
, Puerto Rican baseball player who disappeared after a plane crash off
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport
Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport ( es, link=no, Aeropuerto Internacional Luis Muñoz Marín) is a joint civil-military international airport located in suburban Carolina, Puerto Rico, southeast of San Juan. It is named for Luis Muño ...
on December 31, 1972. His body was never found.
*
Oscar Acosta, lawyer and author, disappeared in Mexico in 1974. Friend of author
Hunter S. Thompson
Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of '' Hell's Angels'' (1967), a book for which he s ...
.
*
Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 – disappeared 8 November 1974, declared dead 3 February 2016), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer who disappeared after being suspected of murder. He was an Anglo ...
, disappeared in 1974 after his nanny was murdered. Declared dead in 2016.
*
Jimmy Hoffa
James Riddle Hoffa (born February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975; declared dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971.
F ...
, trade union leader, disappeared in 1975.
*
Slim Wintermute
Urgel "Slim" Wintermute (born July 9, 1917 – presumed dead October 1977) was an American collegiate and professional basketball player.
Collegiate career
Born in Portland, Oregon, Wintermute attended high school in Longview, Washington. A mobi ...
,
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
player, disappeared while sailing in 1977.
*
John Brisker
John Brisker (June 15, 1947 – disappeared April 11, 1978, declared dead May 29, 1985) was an American professional basketball player from Detroit, Michigan who disappeared in Uganda in April 1978.
Career
A 6'5" forward/guard who played for the ...
,
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
player, disappeared in Uganda in 1978.
*
Frederick Valentich Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederick ...
, Australian aviator, last heard supposedly describing a
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
over radio while flying a light aircraft in 1978. No wreckage or body was found.
*
Etan Patz
Etan Kalil Patz (; October 9, 1972 – May 25, 1979) was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch th ...
, abducted while on his way to a school bus stop in
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
on May 25, 1979; declared dead in 2001. In May 2012, a man named Pedro Hernandez was
charged with Etan Patz's murder based on a confession to police, despite a lack of physical evidence.
*
Ian Mackintosh
Lieutenant Commander Hamish Ian Mackintosh, (born 26 July 1940; disappeared 7 July 1979) was a British Royal Navy officer, a writer of thriller novels, and a screenwriter for British television.
Early life, education and family
Born to Annie ( ...
, British television writer and producer (''
Warship
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster a ...
'', ''
The Sandbaggers
''The Sandbaggers'' is a British spy drama television series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. Set contemporaneously with its original broadcast on ITV in 1978 and 1980, ''The Sandbaggers'' examines the effect of espionage ...
'', ''
Wilde Alliance
''Wilde Alliance'' is a British television series produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in 1978. The programme was a light-hearted mystery series created by Ian Mackintosh about a husband-and-wife pair of amateur detectives, Rupe ...
''), was presumed dead in July 1979 after the plane he was flying disappeared over the
Gulf of Alaska
The Gulf of Alaska (Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the east, ...
. No wreckage was found and none of the plane's passengers were heard of again.
*
Azaria Chamberlain
Azaria ( he, עֲזַרְיָה), or Azarya is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Shephelah around five kilometres south-east of Ramle, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gezer Regional Council. In it had a population of .
Etymology
...
, Australian infant who was snatched by a
dingo
The dingo (''Canis familiaris'', ''Canis familiaris dingo'', ''Canis dingo'', or ''Canis lupus dingo'') is an ancient (Basal (phylogenetics), basal) lineage of dog found in Australia (continent), Australia. Its taxonomic classification is de ...
near
Uluru
Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially Gazette#Gazette as a verb, gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone geological formation, formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the ...
in 1980, declared legally dead in 2012.
*
David A. Johnston
David Alexander Johnston (December 18, 1949 – May 18, 1980) was an American United States Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington. A principal scientist on ...
,
volcanologist
A volcanologist, or volcano scientist, is a geologist who focuses on understanding the formation and eruptive activity of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, sometimes active ones, to observe and monitor volcanic eruptions, col ...
. His body has never been found since the
eruption of Mount St. Helens
On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major explosive eru ...
in 1980.
*
John Favara
John Favara (March 4, 1929 – disappeared July 28, 1980, later declared dead in 1983) was the backyard neighbor of Gambino crime family captain and later boss John Gotti, in Howard Beach, New York, United States, who disappeared on July 28, ...
, neighbor of Mafia boss
John Gotti
John Joseph Gotti Jr.Capeci, Mustain (1996), pp. 25–26 (, ; October 27, 1940 – June 10, 2002) was an American gangster and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss ...
, disappeared on July 28, 1980, several months after accidentally killing Gotti's 12-year-old son Frank. Favara was legally declared dead in 1983.
*
Ronald Jorgensen, convicted killer in New Zealand, disappeared in 1984, possibly faked his own death.
*
Federico Caffè
Federico Caffè (born 6 January 1914; disappeared 15 April 1987; declared dead 30 October 1998) was a notable Italian economist from the Keynesian School.
Early life
Caffè graduated in Business Sciences from the University of Rome La Sapien ...
, Italian economist, disappeared in 1986.
*
Suzy Lamplugh
Suzy may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Suzy'' (film), a 1936 film starring Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone and Cary Grant
* "Suzy" (Fool's Garden song), a song by German pop band Fool's Garden
* "Suzy", a song by French electro swing band Ca ...
, an estate agent, disappeared in London in 1986 while showing a house to a Mr Kipper; her body has never been found.
*
Teddy Wang
Teddy Wang Teh-huei (; 9 September 1933 – missing since 10 April 1990) was a Chinese people, Chinese businessman and founder of the Chinachem Group who was kidnapped for ransom in 1990, and later declared legally dead. His wife, Nina Wang later ...
, entrepreneur, Hong Kong, kidnapped in 1990.
*
Chekannur Maulavi
P.K. Mohammed or Chekannur Maulavi
(born in 1936) was an Indian secular Islamicist from Chekannur, Malappuram district of Kerala, India. He is the founder of the Quran Sunnath. He disappeared on 29 July 1993. His death is uncertain. Career
Ma ...
, Quranist
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic scholar from
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
, India, disappeared in 1993, now believed to have been murdered.
*
Richey Edwards
Richard James Edwards (born 22 December 1967 – disappeared 1 February 1995), also known as Richey James or Richey Manic, was a Welsh musician who was the lyricist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. He w ...
, guitarist/lyricist,
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers, also known simply as the Manics, are a Welsh Rock music, rock band formed in Blackwood, Caerphilly, Blackwood in 1986. The band consists of cousins James Dean Bradfield (lead vocals, lead guitar) and Sean Moore (musician ...
, disappeared in 1995.
*
Larry Hillblom
Larry Lee Hillblom (May 12, 1943 – May 21, 1995) was an American businessman and co-founder of the shipping company DHL Worldwide Express. After his disappearance, his estate paid $360 million to four impoverished children whom he had fathered ...
, businessman, founder of
DHL
DHL is an American founded, German logistics company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service, which is a division of the German logistics firm Deutsche Post. The company group delivers over 1.8 billion parcels per year. DHL ...
, plane crash at sea on May 21, 1995, but body never found; later determined to have fathered four illegitimate children via
statutory rape
In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent (the age required to legally consent to the behavior). Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sexual ...
of underage Asian prostitutes, who received part of his estate in a settlement
*
Scott Smith, bass player for
Loverboy
Loverboy is a Canadian rock band formed in 1979 in Calgary, Alberta. Loverboy's hit singles, particularly " Turn Me Loose" and "Working for the Weekend", have become arena rock staples and are still heard on many classic rock and classic hits r ...
, lost at sea in 2000.
*
Rilya Wilson
Rilya Shenise Wilson (born September 29, 1996) was an American child who was placed in the foster care system of the Florida Florida Department of Children and Families, Department of Children and Families (DCF), and was the centerpoint of an inv ...
, American foster care child, disappeared while under the care of a foster parent appointed by the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF).
*
Sneha Anne Philip
Sneha Anne Philip (October 7, 1969 – September 11, 2001) was an Indian-American physician who was last seen on September 10, 2001, by a department store surveillance camera near her Lower Manhattan apartment. She may have returned to the bui ...
, a New York City physician last seen on the night before the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
, in which she was later ruled to have died.
*
Bison Dele
Bison Dele ( ; born Brian Carson Williams; April 6, 1969 – July 7, 2002) was an American professional basketball player who played center for the NBA's Orlando Magic, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons. D ...
, American
NBA
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
basketball player missing from
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
in 2002; believed to have been murdered by his brother at sea.
*
Ray Gricar
Ray Frank Gricar (; born October 9, 1945, missing since April 15, 2005) was an American lawyer who served as the district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania, from 1985 until 2005. On April 15, 2005, Gricar went missing under mysterious c ...
, district attorney of Centre County, Pennsylvania, disappeared in 2005, declared dead in 2011.
*
Natalee Holloway Natalee is a female given name. It is a variant of the name Natalie, though uncommon according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Notable people with the name include:
*Natalee Caple (born 1970), Canadian author of novels and poetry
*Natalee Holloway (born ...
went missing in
Aruba
Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
on May 30, 2005, and was legally declared dead on January 12, 2012. No remains were found.
*
Marquis Cooper
Marquis Victor Cooper (March 11, 1982 – March 2009, missing, presumed dead) was an American football linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) . He was drafted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the third round of the 2004 NFL Draft. Cooper ...
, an
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
player for the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
's
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...
, went out to the sea off of Florida along with three of his friends, Cooper and two of his friends were never found. Cooper's wife filed for a Presumptive Death Certificate shortly after the disappearance. It's unknown if she was granted one.
*
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination ...
's 12 crew and 227 passengers, as the airliner was presumed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean in 2014.
*
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...
, Swedish diplomat and humanitarian, was arrested by Soviet troops in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
in early 1945 and disappeared. He was pronounced dead on October 31, 2016, by the
Swedish Tax Agency
The Swedish Tax Agency ( sv, Skatteverket) is a government agency in Sweden responsible for national tax collection and administering the population registration.
The agency was formed on 1 January 2004 through the merger of the Swedish Nationa ...
.
*
Ahmad Motevaselian
Ahmad Motevaselian ( fa, احمد متوسلیان), an Iranian military attaché, was one of four Iranians who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982. During the Iran–Iraq War, he was a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and established ...
, Iranian military attaché abducted and disappeared in Lebanon
*
Valery Ilych Khodemchuk, worker at
Chernobyl
Chernobyl ( , ; russian: Чернобыль, ) or Chornobyl ( uk, Чорнобиль, ) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about no ...
's reactor 4 on the night of the disaster, believed to have been killed in the initial explosion.
*
Devonte Hart, African-American child known for being the subject of a 2014 image of him embracing a police officer. Vanished on March 26, 2018; he was believed to have been murdered by his abusive adoptive mothers in an intentional car plunge, and his body swept out to sea. He was legally declared dead on April 3, 2019.
Later discovered
*
William Harrison, English landlord disappeared during a walk in
Chipping Campden
Chipping Campden is a market town in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. It is notable for its terraced High Street, dating from the 14th century to the 17th century. ("Chipping" is from Old English ''cēping'', 'market', 'market- ...
in 1660. Three of his servants were accused of his murder and
hanged in 1661, but Harrison reappeared in 1662, claiming to have been abducted by
Barbary pirates
The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli. This area was known i ...
.
*
Guillaume Le Gentil
Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisière (, 12 September 1725 – 22 October 1792) was a French astronomer who discovered several nebulae and was appointed to the Royal Academy of Sciences. He made unsuccessful attemp ...
, French astronomer, declared dead in the 1760s after being lost at sea for 11 years. He actually died in 1792.
*
José María Grimaldos López, Spanish shepherd disappeared in
Osa de la Vega
Osa de la Vega is a municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Fur ...
after an animal sale in 1910. Two men were accused of murdering him to steal the money and sentenced to 18 years in prison in 1918, but Grimaldos was found alive in 1926.
*
Lawrence Joseph Bader
Lawrence Joseph Bader (December 2, 1926 – September 16, 1966), also known as John "Fritz" Johnson, was an American cookware salesman from Akron, Ohio, Akron, Ohio, who disappeared while on a fishing trip on Lake Erie on March 15, 1957. Declared ...
, salesman from
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
, disappeared on a fishing trip in 1957 and was declared dead in 1960. In 1965 he was found living in
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
, as "Fritz" Johnson, probably suffering from
amnesia
Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
.
*
Steve Fossett
James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...
, aviation/sailing adventurer, died in a plane crash in 2007, declared dead before remains were found in 2008.
*
Ishinosuke Uwano
was a soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army and a prisoner of war in the Soviet labour camps, who came to media prominence in April 2006 after it was found that he had been living voluntarily in Ukraine for six decades after the end of World War ...
, former soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army, declared dead in 2000 yet presented himself as alive and living in Ukraine to the Japanese government in 2006.
*
John Darwin,
fraudster
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...
, faked his own death in 2002.
*
Francisco Paesa
Francisco Paesa (born in Madrid, Spain, 11 April 1936) is a Spanish former spy and businessman best known for his implication in several corruption scandals and the faking of his own death in the 1990s.
Biography
He began his business career con ...
, agent of
Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, the
Spanish secret service
The National Intelligence Centre ( es, Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, CNI) is the Spanish official intelligence agency, acting as both its foreign and domestic intelligence agency. Its headquarters are located next to the A-6 motorway near M ...
. In 1998 he faked a fatal cardiac arrest in Thailand, after tricking
Luis Roldán
Luis Roldán Ibáñez (16 August 1943 – 24 March 2022) was a Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politician known for being the director general of the Civil Guard (Spain), Civil Guard when a big scandal of corruption arose in 1993. This case, a ...
, known for being the general of the
Spanish Civil Guard
The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the a ...
when a major corruption scandal arose in 1993, into stealing all the money that Roldán had previously stolen in that case. He appeared in 2004. During these years, he opened an offshore company, later exposed in the
Panama Papers
The Panama Papers ( es, Papeles de Panamá) are 11.5 million leaked documents (or 2.6 terabytes of data) that were published beginning on April 3, 2016. The papers detail financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 ...
.
*
Emmeril Kahn Mumtadz, the son of the governor of
West Java
West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...
, Indonesia,
Ridwan Kamil
Mochamad Ridwan Kamil (born 4 October 1971) is an Indonesian architect and politician who is the 15th Governor of West Java, the most populous province of Indonesia. He was also the mayor of Bandung from 2013 to 2018. As an architect, he design ...
, was declared dead by his family on 3 June 2022, after being lost at the
Aare
The Aare () or Aar () is a tributary of the High Rhine and the longest river that both rises and ends entirely within Switzerland.
Its total length from its source to its junction with the Rhine comprises about , during which distance it descend ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
on 26 May 2022.
His body was then discovered lifeless on 9 June at the Engehalde Dam.
See also
* ''
Cestui que vie Act 1540
The Cestui que vie Act 1540 (32 Hen 8 c 37) was an Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, Act of the Parliament of England.
Sections 1 to 3 were repealed by section 56 of, and Part I of Schedule 2 to, the Administration of Estates Act 1925.
...
''
* ''
Cestui que Vie Act 1707
The Cestui que Vie Act 1707 ( 6 Ann. c. 72) is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain.
This Act was partly in force in Great Britain at the end of 2010.The Chronological Table of the Statutes, 1235 - 2010. The Stationery Office
The Stat ...
''
*
Faked death
A faked death, also called a staged death or pseudocide, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. People who commit pseudocide can do so by l ...
*
Forced disappearance
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...
*
Legal death
Legal death is the recognition under the law of a particular jurisdiction that a person is no longer alive. In most cases, a doctor's declaration of death (variously called) or the identification of a corpse is a legal requirement for such recognit ...
*
List of missing people
Lists of people who disappeared include those whose current whereabouts are unknown, or whose deaths are unsubstantiated. Many people who disappear are eventually declared dead ''in absentia''. Some of these people were possibly subjected to enfo ...
*
Missing person
A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown.
A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, de ...
References
{{death
Legal aspects of death
Inheritance
de:Verschollenheit