Weekly, Americans take off of work to take a break from life’s responsibilities and travel the country and the world.
Unfortunately, some individuals never made it home from their getaway. After arriving at a tropical destination for a relaxing vacation, tragedy has unfortunately struck for various friends, families and couples who were visiting parts of the world.
These are the stories of eight travelers whose bodies were found during their vacations.
These crimes happened while travelers were on vacation. (iStock)
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- Susan Jacques, Florida
- Sativa Transue, Mexico
- Mark Kilroy, Mexico
- Elijah Snow, Mexico
- Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Ann Day, Dominican Republic
- Monica Beresford-Redman, Mexico
- Abby Lutz and John Heathco, Mexico
- David and Rosaline Foster, Caribbean
1. Susan Jacques, Florida
Susan Jacques was one member of a group of high school students traveling from Connecticut to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for spring break in April 1986.
Jacques was 18 at the time she disappeared one night from her motel, and her body was found three days later, about 35 miles away, floating in a canal west of Delray Beach, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
When she was found, her body was fully clothed, and she was wearing expensive jewelry. A year later, the Sun-Sentinel reported that her death was still unsolved. Today, it appears the murder is still a mystery to police.
2. Sativa Transue, Mexico
In November 2021, during Thanksgiving weekend, Sativa Transue traveled to Mexico with her boyfriend, Taylor Allen.
She was reportedly found “beaten to a bloody pulp” the day after they arrived. Her body was found by a maid in her hotel room.
On a crowdfunding webpage Sativa’s sister Mykayla Bolieu set up, Bolieu wrote that she was contacted by Sativa the day before Sativa died, saying Sativa and Allen had gotten into an argument.
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“Her boyfriend and her at some point had gotten into an altercation and stitches were needed for Sativa. She couldn’t recall what happened,” Bolieu wrote.
Allen was arrested for femicide by Mexican authorities, according to the Transue family. Transue was 26 years old when she was killed on vacation with her boyfriend and her death was ruled a homicide.
It is believed that Allen remains in prison in Mexico.
3. Mark Kilroy, Mexico
Mark Kilroy from Austin, Texas, was killed in March 1989 on a spring break trip to Matamoros, Mexico, he took while a student at University of Texas at Austin.
During his junior year of college studying pre-med, he went on a trip with a group of friends. On the trip, he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered in a sacrifice ritual by a Mexican cult.
His body was found in April 1989.
“”It was a Mexican drug smuggling satanic cult, and they were looking for a white spring breaker that particular night, and Mark was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ryan Fenley, Kilroy’s friend, told Fox 7 Austin in March. “They took him to a ranch right outside of Matamoros, which is owned by a cartel, and pretty much slaughtered him.”
Several books, including one written by his father, Jim Kilroy, titled “Sacrifice: The Tragic Cult Murder of Mark Kilroy in Matamoros: A Father’s Determination to Turn Evil Into Good”, have been written about Mark’s death.
A second book about his death is titled “Hell Ranch: The Nightmare Tale of Voodoo, Drugs, and Death in Matamoros”.
Mark Kilroy was 21 when he was murdered during a spring break trip to Mexico in March 1989. (Associated Press)
4. Elijah Snow, Mexico
On July 18, 2021, Texas firefighter Elijah Snow was celebrating his 10-year anniversary with his wife Jamie in Cancun, Mexico.
He didn’t return to his hotel room, alarming his wife and prompting her to call the Mexican police. The next day, he was found stuffed in a small window at another hotel.
Snow was last seen on the hotel’s video footage taking the stairs versus the elevator.
Officials in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo said he died of mechanical asphyxiation after being trapped in the window in a bathroom, according to NBC News. Randy Elledge, Snow’s father-in-law, and the Snow family’s attorney obtained photos from the crime scene showing he had been beaten over a large portion of his body. Cash from his wallet was also allegedly missing.
Photos of Snow’s body were later released.
In 2022, Snow’s wife filed a lawsuit against the resort and a local travel agency who helped the couple book the trip.
5. Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Ann Day, Dominican Republic
Nathaniel Holmes and his girlfriend, Cynthia Ann Day, were a Maryland couple traveling to the Dominican Republic in late May 2019. The pair were found dead in the room of their resort by a staff member in June 2019 after reportedly suffering respiratory failure. Autopsy reports showed the couple suffered internal bleeding, including in their pancreases, and pulmonary edema.
There were a number of other tourist deaths in the Dominican Republic the same summer the couple was found.
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6. Monica Beresford-Redman, Mexico
Monica Beresford-Redman’s naked body was found dumped in a sewage tank at a hotel in Mexico in April 2010 after her husband reported her missing.
Her husband, Bruce Beresford-Redman, a former “Survivor” producer, was arrested after her body was recovered two days after her disappearance, on April 8, in a sewer at the Moon Palace resort.
Beresford-Redman was convicted of beating and strangling his wife 2015. He was released from prison after serving 7½ years of a twelve-year sentence in 2019, NBC Los Angeles reported. He returned to California in the summer of 2020 to live with his mother and two children. The kids were 5 and 3 at the time of their mother’s death.
7. Abby Lutz and John Heathco, Mexico
The bodies of Abby Lutz and John Heathco were discovered by housekeepers on June 13, 2023, at the Rancho Pescadero hotel in El Pescadero, according to KABC.
Lutz was 28 and Heathco was 41 at the time of their deaths.
Local police, at the time, believed the couple died from inhaling toxic gas. The autopsies revealed they died of “intoxication by an undetermined substance,” according to prosecutors in Mexico’s Baja California Sur state.
Lutz’s stepsister, Gabrielle Slate, said the couple complained of food poisoning before they passed. The hotel temporarily closed on June 18 pending an ongoing investigation following the couple’s deaths.
Prosecutors believed the two had been dead for 11 to 12 hours before their bodies were discovered by the housekeepers and said there was no sign of violence. They were dead by the time paramedics arrived.
8. David and Rosaline Foster, Caribbean
An elderly British couple were found dead on L’Esterre Paradise Beach on March 9, 2024 on the Island of Carriacou, the Royal Grenada Police Force said in a statement.
David, 76, and Rosaline Foster, 77, died while vacationing in the Caribbean.
Police found David lying in the sand, and he was pronounced dead there by a doctor. Rosaline was rushed to Princess Royal Hospital, examined and pronounced dead.
An older couple was suspected to have drowned while in the Caribbean for vacation. (Marica van der Meer/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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Local reports pointed to drowning as a possible reason for the couple’s death. They believed David had a heart attack and Rosaline drowned trying to save him, but the exact details are unknown.
Police launched an investigation into the couple’s deaths, but details of it are presently unknown.
