This Beautiful Young Travel Editor Disappeared While At A Luxury Resort And The Video Footage That Should Have Captured Her Final Hours Was Erased
New York, New York. Claudia Ann Kirschhoch was a beautiful, young, 29-year-old woman living a life that dreams are made of.
She grew up in New Jersey, worked hard in college to get her journalism degree, and was passionate about traveling the world.
Claudia was bold and confident, and she never shied away from adventure. She picked up her life and moved to France for about a year before moving to Astoria, Queens.
It was while she lived in the Big Apple that she landed a job most people would love to have. She became the assistant travel editor at Frommer’s Travel Guides.
Claudia literally got paid to travel to exotic and exciting locations while writing about them, too.
Even though Claudia had a dream job, her life ended in what can only be described as a complete nightmare.
Facebook; Claudia is pictured above
On May 24th, 2000, Claudia got an amazing opportunity to fly out to Havana, Cuba, and stay at a luxury and all-inclusive resort owned by Sandals.
She was getting paid to go and write about the entire experience. She was not going alone though, she was scheduled to fly to Cuba with three other travel writers.
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The flight to Havana was not direct. Claudia and her companions had to fly into Montego Bay, Jamaica, and then catch another flight from there.
But when Claudia and the other writers arrived in Jamaica, they found out they were being denied entry to Cuba.
Facebook; Claudia smiles in the photo above
Unfortunately, every single flight out of Jamaica and back to New York City was completely booked for the next week.
There was no way Claudia was going to be able to get home anytime soon, but that seemed to be ok even though things were not going according to plan.
Sandals offered to let Claudia and one of the other writers, Tania Grossinger, stay over at the resort they owned in Negril, Jamaica.
Things were certainly looking up. Claudia had never been to Jamaica before, so it was still an opportunity to check another destination off the list of places she had been.
And she was still getting to stay at an enviable resort.
Claudia and Tania stayed at Sandals in Negril for three days, and while they were there Claudia became very friendly with one of the bartenders working at the resort. His name was Anthony Grant.
All of a sudden, flights back to New York became available. Tania wanted to go home, but Claudia was not done exploring Jamaica and everything it had to offer.
Tania booked her flight back for May 27th. She met up with Claudia that morning so they could grab breakfast together.
They did, and then they said their goodbyes. Tania flew home.
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A few days passed. Claudia’s family could not get a hold of her. They repeatedly reached out and even left a bunch of voicemails for her on her phone back in New York City.
Nothing. No word from Claudia.
Claudia’s family then decided to call her employer and see what was going on. They said they had no idea where Claudia was, but she had never come back into work.
Claudia’s family reached out to Sandals as their next move. Housecleaning at the resort reported that Claudia last spent the night in her room on May 27th. That was the day Tania flew home and left her behind.
One of the resort lifeguards said they had seen Claudia walking down the beach on the night of May 27th, but nobody had seen her since.
Sandals employees searched Claudia’s room, and shockingly enough all of her personal items were left behind.
Claudia’s passport, her credit cards, her cellphone, her boarding pass for the flight she was supposed to take home…it was all there in her room.
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$180 dollars, her camera, and her ATM cards were also all sitting right there.
So, she could not have left Jamaica without any of those things. The only belongings Claudia owned that were missing from her room were her little radio, her brand new white and blue bikini, and one of her t-shirts.
Interestingly enough, this bikini and t-shirt were what she was wearing when she was out on the beach on the evening of the 27th. Then she vanished for a week before her parents called the resort and asked them to look into where she was.
Now, this is where things get weird.
Following Claudia’s disappearance, the bartender that she became friendly with named Anthony called out of work saying he was sick.
He stayed out sick for four long days, and a piece of Claudia’s long, dark hair was found right in the backseat of his car. There was also blood on a knife inside of his house, but it was not enough to get any DNA from.
Search dogs were brought in that were able to connect Claudia’s whereabouts to Anthony’s car (the trunk this time) and Claudia’s scent was also found on some gloves and boots he owned.
Although Anthony did submit to a polygraph test, authorities say it was not conclusive. Anthony has never been called out as a suspect in whatever happened to Claudia.
Those aren’t the only things that were cause for concern.
Instead of immediately calling authorities to investigate Claudia’s room, which very well could have been an active crime scene, the staff at Sandals allegedly took all of Claudia’s things out.
They then continued to let other resort guests stay in her room. So any evidence that could have potentially been in that room when Claudia was in it was gone.
What else vanished along with Claudia? A book the resort kept that detailed the license plate of every single car or truck that entered the property. Claudia’s cellphone. The footage from the security cameras that should have captured her final hours on the resort.
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Following Claudia’s disappearance, the press in Jamaica tried to make her out to be some irresponsible, immoral young woman who just slept with everyone.
Claudia’s family has vehemently opposed the way the press made her out to be. It was not like her. She was smart. She was savvy. She traveled extensively. She was not some kind of party girl who didn’t care about her own safety. It doesn’t make sense she vanished into thin air.
In 2002, a judge determined Claudia could not have vanished without something being done to her and she was unfortunately declared legally dead.
Although people have claimed to see her around Jamaica, it has never been confirmed that the woman was actually Claudia.
To this day, nobody knows what happened to Claudia and her remains have never been recovered. Jamaican authorities are reportedly still looking into everything, along with the FBI.
Many people have said that Claudia’s strange disappearance eerily mirrors Natalee Holloway’s case.
If you have any information about Claudia, please contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Florida Office at 305-944-9101.
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