Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - FAMILY IN 'LIVING HELL' AS CALIFORNIA TEACHER VANISHES FROM YOGA RETREAT: WHERE'S NANCY?

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A family in living hell as a gorgeous young California teacher mysteriously vanishes from a yoga retreat. Where's Nancy? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. A beautiful young California teacher disappears on a yoga retreat abroad. Where is Nancy? Why do our beautiful young Americans seemingly vanish into thin air when they go

Starting point is 00:00:45 abroad. This for a yoga retreat. I'm just not buying the story. I'm being sold with me and all star pal to make sense of Nancy's disappearance. But first, I want to go straight out to Nikki and Jonathan Ng, the sister and brother of Nancy. To both of you, thank you for being with us. Nikki, when did you first learn your sister has,

Starting point is 00:01:11 as everyone says, vanishes. They make it sound like it's a magic trick. That there she is and drum roll. Now she's gone. None of this is making sense to me. When did you learn that your sister had vanished? We first heard she went missing on October 19th. None of this is making sense to me. When did you learn that your sister had vanished? We first heard she went missing on October 19th.

Starting point is 00:01:31 My dad received a call from Eddie Ramada, the yoga group organizer that day, to say that she had gone out on the water and never returned. You know, Jonathan, there's something missing in that story. You know, we just covered the case of a beautiful young university student, Sadiqshah, who was just at the water's edge

Starting point is 00:01:54 and now she's gone. Same thing happened with Natalie Holloway. Same thing happened with Robin Gardner. I have got a file this thick of people that go missing off yoga retreats. I do not believe that one moment Nancy's there and the next moment Nancy's gone. What were you told, Jonathan? We were told in the phone call from Eddie that, oh, Christina, right now she's at the police station. You'll get all the information that you need

Starting point is 00:02:25 when you get the report next week. And we just waited patiently and we didn't get the answers we got. We didn't get the answers that we needed. Because the answers don't really make any sense. You are seeing video of this gorgeous young teacher, Nancy Ng. She lives in California. She goes to a yoga retreat and she's never seen again. Look at her, full of life, full of joy. Why is

Starting point is 00:03:01 she gone? What happened? The family literally in a living hell. Listen. Special needs teacher Nancy Ng is in Guatemala for a yoga retreat. During a kayak trip on Lake Adelon, Christina Balzek and Nancy Ng go further on the lake than their group. When Balzek claims Nancy got out of her kayak to swim, Balzek returns to shore alone. Nancy Ng is never seen again. This story is not fitting together for me. Again, with me, in addition to Nikki and Jonathan Ng,

Starting point is 00:03:34 an Ulster panel, let me go straight out to Mary Beth McDay joining us, anchor KTLA. Mary Beth, thank you for being with us. What led Nancy Ng to go to this yoga retreat? Yeah, from my understanding, she's a very busy woman. She needed a much needed break. She'd been onto this yoga retreat the previous year and wanted to go back and get some relaxation.

Starting point is 00:03:55 She went with a group of 10 people. And the second to last day they were there, they went out for this kayak trip. And then as you mentioned, everyone came back, all nine people except for Nancy. She, as you mentioned, well, she just seemed to vanish. And, you know, one of the things or two things that really stuck out in my mind with this, Nancy, is that number one, the family has always said, you know, because the final woman to see her alive, it said, Oh, she drowned. And I know to the family, this did not make sense.

Starting point is 00:04:27 I remember the heartbroken father was saying to his other children, how can this be? I taught I taught Nancy had a swim, she's a good swimmer. And he would sleep with a phone in his in his bed every night, hoping to finally get good news about his daughter. And one other kind of suspicious thing that I also found is that after the other nine were back on shore and Nancy was missing, the people from the yoga retreat, they all left. No one stayed behind to help. And then they left

Starting point is 00:04:59 Guatemala within about eight to 12 hours. And that's according to the people who run the kayak rentals. And according to those people from the kayak rentals, they say the gentleman went out to try to search for Nancy. He couldn't find her. And as far as I know, to this day, they never got paid for the renting out those kayaks. So I just know that the kayak rental people are very suspicious to hear, wow, no one's staying behind to find out what happens to this poor woman. You just all flee Guatemala. So that was very suspicious. You know, Mary Beth Bignade joining us, anchor KTLA. Mary Beth, you just said something very probative in my mind. It's not that I'm sure that they're all

Starting point is 00:05:42 strung out about not getting their hundred dollars for the rental But what does that prove they all just left? You've got this person you've been on a yoga retreat with for days You've got to know her to like her to care about her you are all there together at the kayak rental She doesn't come back and you leave so quickly you don't even pay? Mm hmm. You know, and I've covered many stories out here in Los Angeles where someone goes swimming up around Palos Verdes Peninsula. There's a lot of caves in there. All these group of young people like to go in there and swim.

Starting point is 00:06:22 People don't leave. They stay along the shoreline. Many people gather. They, everyone starts looking, where's this poor woman? That wasn't the case in this situation. Everyone left. I mean, how do you leave someone behind and then leave Guatemala within eight to 12 hours? You don't look, you know, you don't look back. I just find that-

Starting point is 00:06:43 I know I may be projecting Marybeth McDade, KTLA, but I recall a very serious diving accident I had and nearly drowned. And when I came to, I looked up and every single person that was on the dive trip with me was standing right there looking down at me. Everyone, nobody just said, oh, okay, bye. I hope everything's okay.

Starting point is 00:07:10 I just find this very disturbing, Mary Beth. Yeah, I do too. You'd think that maybe you'd hop back on the kayak, you'd go out and try to look for her, bring maybe a life jacket out. Fortunately, the owner of the kayak rental shop, he did get in a boat and go look for her. But again, everyone left, so no one was around

Starting point is 00:07:29 to really give more information about, okay, well that's where she was last seen. Okay, here's where I last saw her swimming. Because from the last woman, from what we understand, she had, or through her attorney, we've learned that she says that, oh, you know, at some point, Nancy decided to get out of the kayak and go for a little swim. And she says she told Nancy not to. And then she went over to try

Starting point is 00:07:55 to retrieve Nancy's kayak not once, but twice. And then Nancy was mysteriously gone. And then she battled back to shore. Okay, you paddle back to shore to go get help, but then you leave? I don't get it. I could never see myself leaving a lake or or the ocean or anything if I knew that someone in my group, as you were saying, Nancy, mysteriously vanished. To Nikki Ng and Jonathan Ng, these are Nancy's brother and sister. How did that strike you? When, okay, first of all, I'm hearing that the witness that was last with her, we believe, got a lawyer.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Okay. But that everyone on the excursion came back to shore and went, okay, bye. And they left so quickly they didn't even bother to pay. They didn't have time. They wanted to get out of there so quickly. How did that strike you, Nikki? I just think none of it makes sense. I think one of the most appalling facts that we've heard is that when Christina got back to shore, she went back to the hotel.

Starting point is 00:09:06 She didn't get back out on a boat and show people where in the lake, in this 11 by 5 mile lake, where they were. Instead, she had gone back and we were told by one of the other retreat goers that she was in the meditation room doing Child's Pose. And to us, that is just so shocking and unbelievable. But that's your first response. What about the urgency in fighting a sister? Where's that? Where's that empathy? If if, Nikki, that is really what happened. What about it, Jonathan?

Starting point is 00:09:41 How did that strike you? It doesn't make any sense. It I feel like you should be out there giving information, directing search teams, you know, helping everybody figure out what they can best do to find Nancy to find my sister and for her to be just, I think it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And to be doing child's pose.

Starting point is 00:10:07 Jonathan, when you were first told that Nancy just quote, vanished, those are the words I keep hearing describing her. One minute she's there, the next minute she's gone. I'm not getting a clear picture of what happened. And the fact that everyone on the excursion just left without paying, I find very curious, Jonathan. Yeah, we had heard that the organizer, Eddie,

Starting point is 00:10:35 was kind of shuffling and getting everybody out there in a rush, and that just felt like, why, why would you do this for? We had asked and we reached out saying, hey, is there any chance that you could stay a little bit longer? You know, you could ask me, the group, if there's anybody who's willing to stay behind, volunteer, help out. And not only did he decline to do that, he booked his ticket, rebooked his ticket out of Guatemala a day early, left a date earlier than he had planned. He didn't actually, people had told us on the retreat, if Eddie had

Starting point is 00:11:09 asked me, hey, the family would like someone to stay to help out, that they would have stayed. But he didn't even bother asking. He ignored it, and he used his text and calls when she had called them. And someone said that he literally, they literally saw him look at his phone and put his face down. Wow. Wendy Patrick joining me, veteran California prosecutor. She's president founder of Black Swan Vertix, author of Why Bad Looks Good. Also reading people, how to understand people and predict their behavior anytime, any place. She's also the star of Today with Dr. Wendy on KCBQ.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Wendy, does the term flight fit? Is that appropriate here? Flight, evidence of flight? It's interesting you bring that up, Nancy, because that's often argued when you have persons of interest who disappear, because it really comes down to exactly that. You have a case where it looks like the cover-up may be part of a crime, but you don't have

Starting point is 00:12:09 suspects in this case yet. You just have suspicious behavior following this tragedy. And one of the things that makes this scenario unique is we all know it's challenging enough to gather forensic evidence on land. How much harder in the middle of the lake lake where the only people who would be able to provide those leads took flight almost immediately. Now the reason why I may have something to do with potential civil liability, maybe that's why they didn't pay.

Starting point is 00:12:36 Maybe there are other explanations. But as you just point out with the example you shared personally, it's not the way human beings behave. And when you look at behavioral evidence, the fact that most people stay and say, what can I do to help? Tell me where to look. Let's go to the police. Let's share information. It is absolutely just out of the pale. And the brother and sister, they picked up on this right away that that was not only not the case here, but that the departure date was expedited after this beautiful young woman went missing. Very unusual.

Starting point is 00:13:08 And of course, Wendy Patchett, you're a veteran trial lawyer. You know that in many jurisdictions, judges no longer give a jury charge regarding flight as evidence of guilt. That is no longer allowed in many jurisdictions, while prosecutors do still argue it under the law. And does it mean anything? Maybe. Maybe not. But it certainly bears investigation that as my understanding, Jonathan Ng, that the guy in charge of this excursion looked at a cell phone and put it face down when he was being asked reportedly to continue the search for your sister and everybody left including him rebooking his flight to get out of Dodge even earlier? And the only reason we know this is because a United Airlines employee went out of his way to show a content creator that was

Starting point is 00:14:03 covering Yancey's case that information. Yeah. Additionally, like it's not even that he ignored us. We heard from the prosecutor in charge of investigating the case that he also had a hard time reaching Eddie that he was ignoring texts and calls from the investigative people in Guatemala. And the thing is, both Eddie and Christina were summoned to provide their testimonies the day following the incident, but by then they had already left. Wendy Patrick, you mentioned something about civil liability, that maybe they all left because they were afraid of civil liability.

Starting point is 00:14:36 You mean they were afraid they were going to get sued? Maybe that could have been a concern, the guy that arranged the excursion, but what about the other fellow kayakers? They would not be subjected to any civil liability. Why did everybody leave? Just like that, including the woman we believe to be the last person to see Nancy alive. Well, I don't get it. And that's also one of the reasons that she lawyered up, as we say, you know, getting

Starting point is 00:15:05 a lawyer prospectively because everybody's afraid they may be blamed. Here's the emotional value of that kind of behavior, whether or not people understand the law. Everyone is afraid that if they're the last person that saw somebody alive, or if something they did may have caused the death of another, sometimes it's panic. And we have seen that sometimes panic is contagious. So we don't know exactly how this group decided together it's best to leave. And it's awful that it happened. And I hope that they are just broken up about it. And maybe,

Starting point is 00:15:37 hopefully, especially as a result of this broadcast, maybe they'll come forward and start to help. But sometimes we see that that ends up being sort of emotional contagion, whether or not as a logical matter, any of them can be charged. They didn't do it. There's no evidence at this point. And flight is an instruction that relates to a criminal defendant, not to people at the scene that may have information that could help law enforcement find a beautiful young missing woman. Mary Beth McDade joining us, ACRE KTLA. The woman purported to be the last one to see Nancy before she vanished. She does know the law.

Starting point is 00:16:13 Isn't she a public defender? Yeah, she's a public defender out in San Bernardino County. You know, one thing that I recall from covering this story and that is that supposedly the hotel owner in Guatemala had taken Christina Blasik down to speak with the police. And then, and hopefully Nikki and Jonathan can talk more about this because they learned this through their attorney that they hired on the ground there in Guatemala. And by the way, an attorney down in Guatemala is more like an investigator, just so you know. But supposedly she was taken down there and gave us a report, but they didn't want an American behind bars in Guatemala. So the hotel owner

Starting point is 00:16:56 supposedly paid off some kind of bribe. And, you know, Nikki and Jonathan had spoken with K-Chile a few months ago about that. And maybe they can tell us where things, you know, Nikki and Jonathan had spoken with K. Chile a few months ago about that. And maybe they can tell us where things stand with that. Because from what I understand, this the last moment to see Nancy alive, that the report she gave to police was never in the paperwork or the police report that was given to the family. It takes a special kind of person to work with children as a behavioral interventionist. It requires a professional who can work one-on-one with students exhibiting challenging behaviors, getting to know the child, and developing a plan to modify behavior and reduce negative

Starting point is 00:17:35 behaviors. Nancy Ng is just such a person. She works with children at Garfield Elementary School in Alhambra. Witnesses refused to speak, allegedly fleeing Guatemala after a 29-year-old woman mysteriously disappears. What happened to Nancy Ing? Her family joining us tonight in living hell with no answers.

Starting point is 00:18:03 Why do so many young and beautiful, beloved American women go abroad, this time to a yoga retreat, and they never come home? Mary Beth McDade on the case from the GetGo anchor, KTLA, you wanted to ask a question of Nikki and Jonathan? Yes, Nancy, in covering a story, I recall that the last woman to see Nancy alive, that the owner of the hotel had supposedly taken her down to the police station to file some kind of report,

Starting point is 00:18:35 but that they didn't want to have an American in jail in Guatemala. And so in covering the story, learning from the family, they hired an attorney down in Guatemala who discovered that there was some sort of payoff by the hotel to get that woman out of Guatemala because I guess they don't like Americans behind bars in Guatemala. So I'm curious, you know, Nikki and John, did you guys ever find out more about this

Starting point is 00:19:00 supposed bribe and, you know, did it really happen? And you know, what do you guys know about that today? So we learned about the bribe allegations because multiple sources that used to work at the hotel the Nazi was staying at informed us that the reason why we don't have Christina's witness statement in the police report is because of bribe to police. And when we first heard this, we were so confused because we just didn't understand why that would happen. And like you said, we were told that the hotel owners arranged a bribe so that Christina's statement would be omitted so that she wouldn't have to stay

Starting point is 00:19:38 and be detained in the country. Is that your understanding, Jonathan? Yeah, we wish we had more information. That's the most frustrating thing about this entire situation. We have so little to work off of, and it feels like no one else is working, no other authority is working to get us the information that would actually give us clarity. And the witnesses aren't speaking up. It's really hard to know exactly what actually happened.

Starting point is 00:20:08 Well, what we do know for certain is that the statement was purposely omitted. Even another retreat participant confirmed that. Because of that decision, we don't know what happened to our sister, and it's been over a year and a half. CRIME STORIES WITH NANCY GRACE We don't know if there was a bribe. We don't know who paid the alleged bribe. For what? But we do know, don't we Mary Beth McDade, KTLA, don't we know that the witness, I believe, is a lawyer, a public defender, handled a lot of cases, criminal cases, that she left immediately following the vanishing of Nancy?

Starting point is 00:20:56 Yes, yes. She's a public defender out in San Bernardino County. And yes, she did as well as everyone that was on that yoga retreat. I mean, they, according to the owners of the kayak rental place, they all left immediately from the lake. And then they went back and they were out of Guatemala within eight to 12 hours. And what I guess I also find remarkable is here's this family. They really want to know what happened. When was the last time you saw my sister? What was she doing? Hey, can you pinpoint in this lake exactly where you saw her so that all our search crews have some sort of idea where to even start looking and then to use science to try to figure out

Starting point is 00:21:39 where a body may go. And she really didn't come forward to the family until through her attorney. And that was after Chris Sharpe, who I know you're going to be speaking with. He has the search team that was hired by the family to go down there and start looking. And from my understanding, he was a bit frustrated that he couldn't hear from this woman. Okay, please help us tell free alas on Nancy. He released her name to the public. And then all of a sudden, well, that's when her attorney came forward and told the family her version of events.

Starting point is 00:22:13 It was about four weeks later. Why could you have done it that day? Why couldn't you have let people know? Excuse me, we're a wider way. So searchers had a good idea of where to start looking. Joining us right now, a special guest, Chris Razor Sharp, a master air crewman, conducted the first aerial searches of Lake Tietland where Nancy went missing, reportedly went missing. A fellow

Starting point is 00:22:40 of the Institute of Search and Technical Rescue, Helicopter Association. It goes on and on and on and you can find him at blackwolfhelicopters.com. Let's just say he's an expert. Chris Razor Sharp, thank you for being with us. I'm having an issue reconciling the story I'm hearing with what I know of the topography in the area and the lake. We often hear people going missing in the ocean. They're taken away by a big wave. We hear of people going under in white water rapids, but in a lake, in a lake. Let me think. Nancy knew how to swim. she was on a kayak, she was on what should have been a very safe excursion. You ever been on a Disney cruise?

Starting point is 00:23:30 I've been on plenty. Those excursions, I mean you'd have to really try to get hurt. You have to go out of your way to get hurt. So given your search of the lake, how does somebody, a lake, a contained lake, how does somebody go missing and they're never found in a lake? Typically they don't just vanish. Especially in a lake, there are certain undercurrents that do pull things down. But the big problem we had because we didn't know where to look to

Starting point is 00:24:06 start the search. So that's why we ended up with helicopters searching the entire lake, the entire coastline. And then as the search progressed, we put dogs in around the resort. Obviously, the scuba divers, we did under through all the reeds and everywhere. It's a very difficult area to search in the first place. One the altitude, so everyone sees a beautiful lake. It's about 6,000 feet above sea level. There's three mountain ridges we have to cross to get there. So we're operating at peak performance of the helicopter. And then due to just pure size and thankfully the family members who were in contact with us, that's the only information we had. People say, did we speak to witnesses? Well, there weren't any witnesses because they'd all gone. The people on the ground were unfriendly because of the press

Starting point is 00:25:13 attention that was coming their way. So that's why we kind of protracted search in a sense. Okay, Chris aka Razor Sharp, guys he served 10 years in the Royal Navy Police Special Investigations. He's a certified criminal investigator. Chris several follow-up questions regarding what you just said. Number one, you're referred to a difficulty in searching, but what you described seems to me like a difficulty in the helicopter search. I've, as a diver, I've done hundreds of dives. I've never had a problem diving in a lake because when I think of a problem as a dive searcher, I think of choppy water, which largely goes away once you get below the surface of the chop. I think of murky water where you can't see in

Starting point is 00:26:11 front of yourself like you're doing a night dive. The water is so murky. But when you're doing the search, forget about the land search and the helicopter search. Was the water search itself difficult? Yes, because of the large expanse of water and even if you take the bay into account where the resort was, that is still a massive area for the divers. So they did various search patterns, but they can't. It drops off really deep, really quick. But because we didn't have a start point of any description, that's what frustrated a lot of the efforts. Is it true, Chris, that this lake is 120 feet deep at its deepest and it is 50 plus square miles. Yes, that is correct. Okay, don't you believe it would have helped you if those familiar with her last known

Starting point is 00:27:19 sighting could have told you specifically where they were? Absolutely, because we could have focused everything on that point. At one stage, we had three helicopters, two dive teams, the search dogs searching everywhere because we had nobody physically say it was over there. We've got various accounts, but they all differ. None of them are corroborative. Yeah. So you're getting different stories about where she was? Yeah, so some people say, oh, they were over here.

Starting point is 00:27:58 And then we had a position which was the other side of the lake is. Somebody's lying. Yeah, absolutely. Somebody's either very, very mistaken or they're outright lying. And again, let me repeat, no one has been named a suspect or even a person of interest in this case. We've had a lot of stories, a lot of information coming our way, as have Nikki and Jonathan.

Starting point is 00:28:25 Can't corroborate it. Cannot corroborate it. Question, Chris, did you bring out cadaver dogs? Yes. Did they hit? No. So, the reason we introduced the dogs was because of the stories that the family were being fed, the fact that we had...Nobody could actually

Starting point is 00:28:48 prove to me, to be honest, she was actually on the lake, but we're just going on a few witness accounts that we had. So the last searches that we did, we took the cadaver dogs to do that entire all around the hostel where they were staying and the other hostels, it's not a very big place. And then we put the divers under the piers, amongst the reeds and almost a body search, essentially, more akin to a police search than a search and rescue. Chris Sharpe, did the cadaver dogs hit? Negative, no.

Starting point is 00:29:28 Isn't it true, Chris Sharp, that cadaver dogs will hit on the water if there's a dead body? Yes. We investigated that because of the sand that flows across the surface. It's not particularly windy. It's not particularly rough, It's not particularly rough. But the

Starting point is 00:29:47 dogs, nothing. Chris, how soon after Nancy quote vanished, did you bring in the dogs? Initially, it was probably a week later because we had to search the entire lake in case you'd swim ashore. Because you can swim ashore around the corner, you can't get out of there because it's the cliffs and the et cetera. Then we had spurious reports and psychic people telling us, so we searched the entire perimeter of the lake.

Starting point is 00:30:20 And obviously from the helicopter, we can see vertically down quite a depth and it's the fastest way to do it. So maybe two weeks into it. Would you have expected a cadaver dog to hit after two weeks? Yes. We spoke to a bunch of guys in the United States and the dog handlers down here. And that's the reason we took them because they felt it was a worthwhile option. If they hadn't said that, we wouldn't

Starting point is 00:30:53 have used them. You say that people on the ground were unfriendly and not cooperative. What happened? Obviously, when I named two persons of interest, the retreat leader and the female, I've tried contacting them. Obviously, the family had, we got nothing. I named them and then I received threats from anonymous people saying, you've got the wrong retreat. It's not that one, it's somewhere else. It's just, and they don't like, they operate on tourism and obviously being in the news as much

Starting point is 00:31:33 as they were, they're not particularly friendly. But we're used to that. You know, to Nikki and Jonathan Eng, listening to Chris Sharpe describe the search, it just seems to me, if this were as straightforward as we've been led to believe, that she suddenly, out in the middle of a lake, that's 50 square miles, 1,200 feet deep, at its deepest, that's very, very deep. Amateur divers rarely go below 100, much less 1,200 feet.

Starting point is 00:32:05 If it were as straightforward as we're being told that she suddenly jumped off a kayak Amateur divers rarely go below 100, okay, much less 1200 feet. If it were as straightforward as we're being told that she suddenly jumped off a kayak to go for a swim, why is everyone being so secretive and not helping? Has that crossed your mind, Nikki? Yeah, it just, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel like the right response to just leave. And it's just how can we direct our search teams if we don't know where to look? If the only person that was with Nancy is unwilling to speak to them,

Starting point is 00:32:33 how do they know where to look? It's it feels near impossible. Jonathan Ng, did you realize that psychics had been consulted? Yeah, they were reaching out to us, trying to offer us their services. Some of them sent us what they had seen just unprompted. I think I remember one instance where the machine organizer, we talked about him, Eddie, he had circled two points on a map with his iPhone and he was like, oh, we left from here and this is where you'll find Nancy. And they were just both ridiculously wrong.

Starting point is 00:33:14 He was insisting, this is where you'll find Nancy, this is where we were. The part where he circled his own location was incorrect. And definitely the part where he circled where Nancy was, was way too far. It was literally on the other side of the lake where Chris said it was literally impossible. Not helpful at all. I find it very difficult to understand why, if she drowned, why cadaver dogs did not hit on the scene, the cadaver dogs that Chris Razor Sharp brought out. Quick question, Nikki Jonathan, what happened to her cell phone? Her cell phone was left with her belongings in the hotel. She decided not to bring it

Starting point is 00:33:49 because she was worried about losing it. To Nikki and Jonathan Ng, the brother and sister of Nancy, do you ever dream of her because the case is unresolved? I've dreamt of her back at our family's home when we were growing up. I've seen her in my head, in my dreams, at the park together with her. I see her in front of what I imagine to be her first home. It's confusing. It's hard to know how to feel about everything. What happened and where is she now? Nikki?

Starting point is 00:34:23 Yeah, I dream of her all the time. And it's hard in those dreams. She's happy. And I miss seeing that. I miss the way she laughs. And I think it's just we don't have closure. So that's all we have to hold on to. And even just two weeks ago during the search,

Starting point is 00:34:45 we got a photo of Nancy from someone claiming that they found her through the sex trafficking ring. And it's just things like that that make that emotional limbo hell. It's torture to not know what happened. Wait a minute. Hold on. Nikki, you got a photo purportedly of your sister and the person that said it said that she was in a minute, hold on. Nikki, you got a photo purportedly of your sister and the person

Starting point is 00:35:06 that said it said that she was in a sex, she'd been sex trafficked? Yeah, we've gotten countless extortion texts and calls, but the FBI have ruled most of them out as just that. Like they don't really have hands. It's just hard to see that and not think otherwise. So in addition to not having answers, you have all these ghouls contacting you, claiming they know where Nancy is, including that she's been sex trafficked? Yeah, and I think that's why we're trying so hard

Starting point is 00:35:42 to get these search teams out there because we just want some sort of closure. And I don't hard to get these search teams out there because we just want some sort of closure. And I don't want to imagine that she's out there suffering. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining us now, a special guest, Dr. Siobhan Scott, psychotherapist and author of The Minds of Mass Killers, Understanding an Interrupting Pathway to Violence and Game Addiction, The Experience and the Effects. Dr. Siobhan, thank you for being with us. Now, see, again, I'm

Starting point is 00:36:23 projecting, but when my fiance was murdered, I knew what happened. I knew what happened. His body was at his funeral. He was buried. When you don't know what happened to the one you love the most, and you dream, for instance,

Starting point is 00:36:41 of them walking in the door, of meeting them on the street, of seeing them across a field. It's maddening. It's hell. You first of all, you can't grieve. You don't know that they're dead or have they been sex trafficked? Have they been kidnapped? What happened to them? If they are dead, how did they die? What did they suffer? You don't know. You don't have anything or any place to mourn. It is a living hell and it never ends, Dr. Siobhan. You nailed it. You nailed it, Nancy. This is really the family's worst nightmare, a loved one who disappears and

Starting point is 00:37:19 we don't have the true story. We don't have the details. I would like the Ing family to realize that what they're experiencing is not just grief. Grief is hard enough, right? We've all been through that, it's awful. But this is what we call ambiguous loss. And that means your heart is caught between hope and despair, between searching and mourning, and that emotional limbo is devastating. There's no closure. There's no road map. And that makes it harder to cope than almost any other kind of loss.

Starting point is 00:37:50 And we we really need to reach out to our support system. Heart to heart connections help people get through incredibly difficult things. But my heart just goes out to them. And I think they're doing all the right things by trying to get this dialogue going and to keep it in the media because every missing person it's a ripple that affects all of us. Let me understand Nikki and Jonathan. There's only one person that claims to have seen her before she vanished, right?

Starting point is 00:38:25 The public defender, the female. Just one, nobody else on the excursion. Other participants, they were on the shore, they couldn't see any details. They just saw two dots, and the only person that was actually there to be able to see everything happen was the attorney, was Kristin.

Starting point is 00:38:39 So, other than her word for what happened, for all I know, Nancy could have been taken. I don't think we'll ever know for sure, because even the people that have spoken to Christina have different accounts of what she said, like conflicting information. So we don't know. Such as what?

Starting point is 00:39:01 She's told, Christina has told other participants that she's not sure if Nancy jumps into the lake or if she fell from her kayak. And that's very different from what her attorney is now saying. She's said that she didn't hear anything that she just kind of vanished. She's also said in different counts that she heard a struggle. And those are really difficult details to mess up and to see

Starting point is 00:39:26 two ways of. And her not talking to us, this gives me less clue about who she is as a person, or maybe it tells me more about who she is as a person. Dr. Siobhan Scott, question to you. You would, we would expect for witnesses, material witnesses, such as the woman believed to be the last person to see Nancy Alive, everybody else in the group, the excursion coordinator and more, we would expect them to stay and try to find her and expect for everyone to be forthcoming. This is when I saw her, this is what happened. To me, it doesn't make sense psychologically for them to just leave.

Starting point is 00:40:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think any of us putting ourselves in that kind of situation, we would be devastated and we would be doing everything we possibly could to try to give the police information, to scour the lake, look for the vicinity. Is there anything we can come up with that would be helpful? And I think speaking for myself, it would be hard to pry me away from that. So it does seem counterintuitive, but sometimes

Starting point is 00:40:39 people can be influenced by somebody's panic reaction who says, oh, we've all got to get out of here. I think it just doesn't all add up, as everyone has said. It's different than the way most of us would imagine acting in a situation like this, where we would be panicked about trying to find the person. So I think there are so many of these gray areas where things just don't feel

Starting point is 00:41:06 right. And it leaves the family in limbo just wondering and ruminating, which is a perfectly normal reaction. We'd all be doing that. But, you know, and legally can anything be done? And at this point, without more evidence, we just hope that somebody comes forward or there's something that can clear it up. To Nancy and Jonathan Eng, Nancy Eng's brother and sister, did the public defender, the lawyer, the last one believed to have seen your sister alive, have you tried to reach her? Has she contacted you? No, she's never contacted us, but we've tried to reach out to her via emails and even through the U.S. Embassy, sending a letter on our behalf.

Starting point is 00:41:47 She's never responded. She's refused to help search teams. And while we can understand the panic in the moment to come back home to safety in California, why not offer your help then when you're back to safety? It just doesn't make sense. Now, remember, there's a reason that hearsay is typically not allowed in court. When you hear, see, she told me that she said that cannot be cross-examined or tested. These are unconfirmed reports. No one has been charged. No one is a suspect.

Starting point is 00:42:21 No one is a person of interest. What we want is the truth. Where is Nancy? To Scott Eicher joining us, founding member of the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team. Like that so can, founding member of the FBI Cellular Analysis Team. Currently with Precision Cellular Analysis. Scott, thank you for being with us.

Starting point is 00:42:49 What, if anything, could be called from her cell phone? There's a ton of stuff that could be called from her cell phone. Not only the device itself and all the text messages, all the apps that she's used, all the websites she's been to, but also from the cell phone towers in that area. I don't know that area in Guatemala and how much coverage they do have, but that's one thing that the FBI could be working

Starting point is 00:43:18 with the Guatemalan government to try to obtain, what towers that she was using before after she went missing to see if there's any data there that they could recover that might help in this situation. Scott Eicher, wouldn't the cell phone reveal texts and phone calls leading up to her disappearance? Was there any controversy? Were there any bad feelings? I mean, how long does that data stay in the cloud? It really depends. You know, the cloud servers for whatever server she's using there in Guatemala,

Starting point is 00:43:52 and if she's using any applications that are US-based or based anywhere else, that could stay there a good amount of time. Plus the stuff in her phone will stay there. So hopefully they recovered her phone and they've done an extraction of the data on there and reviewed that to see if there's any controversy or any issues prior to her going missing.

Starting point is 00:44:15 You're hearing Scott Eicher joining us, an expert in cellular analysis, formerly with the FBI, now a precision cellular analysis. You know, Chris Sharpe, the search, your search, your extensive search, for me, leads to even more questions. Absolutely. So, search is not, we don't just go out and fly around into it, it's based on human behavior, what people do, the circumstances around, like, oh, she fell off a kayak and it's like, so you didn't try and help your fellow human in the water. People don't just sink immediately. It's so frustrating. And then the fact that they had all changed the flights and gone by the time

Starting point is 00:45:06 we were even contacted. So we had no firsthand account from anybody apart from what the family gave us. Nikki and Jonathan Eng, what is your message tonight? First to you, Nikki. I think our message is that we are not vengeful people. We truly just want the truth about what happened to our sister and as much information as we can get to find her and bring her home. Jonathan? It's upsetting. I'm frustrated, I'm upset, and I just really hope that those who have information, those who are

Starting point is 00:45:45 responsible, that they come forth still after all this time that they come forth so that they can give us what we need to find our sister. Jonathan, what haunts you the most? The fact that you don't know where her body is or that she may still be alive? I think the thought that she may still be alive is, it's a lot. Yeah, I don't want her to be out there suffering. Nikki, what disturbs you the most about your sister's disappearance?

Starting point is 00:46:23 I think all of it. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that people can just pick up and leave and not help at all. I mean, Nancy was the kind of person that went out of her way to help anybody, even strangers. And so the fact that she's potentially gone forever and that the people that were last with her are not willing to help at all, it just really breaks my heart. It would really be painful getting information about her sister,

Starting point is 00:46:57 not even through the witnesses directly, but through learning about it through national television. I just wish there was a dialogue so we could learn more. Where is Nancy? What happened to her? Could she still be alive? And under what circumstances? No one has been charged.

Starting point is 00:47:18 No one is a suspect. No one is a person of interest, for all we know, these players' behavior could be innocently explained. But we don't know that, because there seems to be a wall of silence surrounding the disappearance of Nancy Ng. If you know or think you know anything about the disappearance of Nancy Ng, please, please come forward and end this family's suffering. 626-614-3218.

Starting point is 00:47:54 Repeat, 626-614-3218 or email helpusfindnancy at gmail dot com. We remember an American hero, Sergeant David Prairie Baton Rouge PD, 17 years with law enforcement killed in the line of duty, along with partner Corpor Corporal Scotty Canazero, in a helicopter crash. American hero, Sergeant David Poirier. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart podcast.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - FAMILY IN 'LIVING HELL' AS CALIFORNIA TEACHER VANISHES FROM YOGA RETREAT: WHERE'S NANCY?

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