Bulgaria - Lars Mittank, 28, German tourist, Varna airport, 8 July 2014

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dotr said:
Welcome to the thread garthkelly, thanks for the excellent insight!
Happy New Year to all the wonderful Ws members here and from all around the world!!
:newyear:
Click to expand...

Right back at you, dotr. I hope everyone here enjoyed the festivities.
 
garthkelly said:
no sorry, i copied n pasted the text and i cant remember where from, me personally, my older bro has had Paranoid schizophrenia for over 20 years, i know lars had no history off mental illness, but from the story and viewing the cctv, he behaves just like ive seen my brother behave with his illness many times, once my bro ran and ran convinced all was out to get him and he ran down a cliff through brambles and thorny brush on a coastal path, no shoes, clothes torn he was so scratched and bleeding i didnt recognise him, head to toe, he managed to stop on the cliff edge and hes still here today. I believe lars is still running, and is still convinced these 4 men are after him, hes in bulgaria hitchhiking in circles, no passport he cant leave, if he had his wallet he wouldnt use his bank card, traces, people have to think, if you truly believed 4 men were after you and maybe your family, how and what would you do in his place, unless they find his body, hes unwell, scared stiff, and this episode has become his reality its been over 3 years with no help, everyone to him is an enemy, nobody in a tee shirt n shorts just runs off, never to be seen again, also he calmly walks in the airport and 46 mins later sprints away parinoid, at the blink of eye mental illness can switch and take on many forms in many different ways,
Click to expand...

This last part, the underlined part explains this case well, I feel anyway. He was on a slow decline that whole vacation, and possibly before, but then the switch flipped, fast and here we are.
 
I have followed this case closely over the years. I saw a post somewhere on facebook from one of the official pages dating back march 2017 that a homeless man was spotted near varna airport but there was no follow up, maybe nothing came of it?
Also I was reading up on reddit about lars mittank and a post came up that someone had spoke to him in Canada in 2017 but I don't know how true that is.
With the very few pictures we have of lars mittank, it is kinda hard to know what he looks like. He does look different in almost every single photo.
I contacted the facebook page because I thought that homeless man in hospital was lars mittank last year but turned out to be a missing canadian.
I have a feeling he is still alive, living in another country homeless.
What about that picture posted of a man wearing shades on the beach? Does anyone know if that was taken further?
 
YellowSunshine said:
I have followed this case closely over the years. I saw a post somewhere on facebook from one of the official pages dating back march 2017 that a homeless man was spotted near varna airport but there was no follow up, maybe nothing came of it?
Also I was reading up on reddit about lars mittank and a post came up that someone had spoke to him in Canada in 2017 but I don't know how true that is.
With the very few pictures we have of lars mittank, it is kinda hard to know what he looks like. He does look different in almost every single photo.
I contacted the facebook page because I thought that homeless man in hospital was lars mittank last year but turned out to be a missing canadian.
I have a feeling he is still alive, living in another country homeless.
What about that picture posted of a man wearing shades on the beach? Does anyone know if that was taken further?
Click to expand...

I have been wondering the same as well. The private detective hired by Lars' family found out there is a homeless man living in the forest behind Varna airport and at one time German media stated this detective said there was a 50% chance this man was Lars as the physical features were almost identical. But afterwards no more updates on this and I have not read anywhere if there was a search for this man.

Does anybody know how vast this forest is? I have been to Varna many times but never to the airport so I do not know this particular area.

I personally think Lars' disappearance happened due to TBI exacerbated by the experiences he had during the holidays and the unfamiliar surroundings. It is very plausible that what he said, that he got attacked a second time by Russians who beat him up, did indeed occur -Bulgarian mafia is very active in Varna and it has strong Russian connections- and that mix of medications, the possible brain injury sustained during the first beating and the extreme fear caused by these encounters with these people made him completely lose it.

I have seen this erratic behaviour on many expatriates here in Bulgaria. Last summer I taught in a small town in the Black Sea -not far from Sunny Beach- and two of the British teachers staying at the same apartment I was in went completely paranoid -people with no previous mental struggles whatsoever- to the point they did not want to go to the supermarket on their own and asked us to go with them because they said there were been followed. Then we had an Irish teacher -also completely healthy when she arrived- who the night prior to taking her flight back to Dublin started walking in the streets with no shoes on, approaching people to ask them incoherent questions -we, the rest of the teachers could see this from our balcony- and when she came into the flat we actually had to call the authorities because she got very, very violent and could not stop mumbling things that did not even sound like English. She was taken to a medical centre and no, she had not taken any drugs at all.

Fear makes people do very strange things. I have lived here in Sofia for five months now and so far I have been mugged by a taxi driver -my Bulgarian friends told me not to report it to the police as they said this could bring me more harm than good- , stalked by a beggar for hours -she later turned up just outside WU when I was sending money to my mum and when she asked me for some money and I said "No, sorry" she said to me in fluent English "You don't have any money to give me then, stupid Englishwoman?"- and last Sunday a gypsy child aged roughly 8 or 9 tried to mug me. I kept walking and he spent about 20 minutes following me, punching me on the back, he even tried to slap me several times and put his hand inside the pocket in my coat.

One of my fellow teachers resigned with immediate effect a few weeks back. He later told me by email that "Three weeks is all I could cope with in Bulgaria"; he said that at 4 am he was sweating in bed out of fear so he decided to phone a taxi and sit at the airport until he could get a flight ticket back to the UK.

I just have the feeling this is what happened to Lars. The Balkans is just not for the faint-hearted and he was probably already feeling scared and the injury probably made his mind spiralled out of control.

I am hopeful he is still alive and he just doesn't know who he is.

I wish I could speak Bulgarian so that I could contact authorities to ask if there is any chance we -lots of expats and locals together- could organize a thorough search of that forest.
Many locals are aware of this case and they want to help, I am sure of that because I have discussed this case with my Bulgarian friends and they do care about Lars' fate.
 
Just throwing this out there in response to yurena's intriguing post.
Could something like this be happening?
speculation, imo.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cuba-sonic-sound-attacks-canadian-diplomats-1.4289996
At least five Canadian diplomatic families were affected by mysterious "sonic attacks" in Cuba that left them with symptoms including hearing loss, headaches and dizziness.

That is a larger number of people than previously reported and suggests the Canadian diplomats were targeted intentionally and were not merely victims of mistaken identity in a wave of attacks that affected a larger number of U.S. diplomats.

But a Canadian source with knowledge of the affair told CBC News that unlike some of those U.S. diplomats, all affected Canadians have recovered from their initial symptoms, which in some cases required hospital treatment.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than five — but fewer than 10 — Canadian families were affected by the attacks.
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A big welcome to all the new Wsers!
:welcome:
 
YellowSunshine said:
I have followed this case closely over the years. I saw a post somewhere on facebook from one of the official pages dating back march 2017 that a homeless man was spotted near varna airport but there was no follow up, maybe nothing came of it?
Also I was reading up on reddit about lars mittank and a post came up that someone had spoke to him in Canada in 2017 but I don't know how true that is.
With the very few pictures we have of lars mittank, it is kinda hard to know what he looks like. He does look different in almost every single photo.
I contacted the facebook page because I thought that homeless man in hospital was lars mittank last year but turned out to be a missing canadian.
I have a feeling he is still alive, living in another country homeless.
What about that picture posted of a man wearing shades on the beach? Does anyone know if that was taken further?
Click to expand...

:wagon:YellowSunshine!
 
yurena said:
I have been wondering the same as well. The private detective hired by Lars' family found out there is a homeless man living in the forest behind Varna airport and at one time German media stated this detective said there was a 50% chance this man was Lars as the physical features were almost identical. But afterwards no more updates on this and I have not read anywhere if there was a search for this man.

Does anybody know how vast this forest is? I have been to Varna many times but never to the airport so I do not know this particular area.

I personally think Lars' disappearance happened due to TBI exacerbated by the experiences he had during the holidays and the unfamiliar surroundings. It is very plausible that what he said, that he got attacked a second time by Russians who beat him up, did indeed occur -Bulgarian mafia is very active in Varna and it has strong Russian connections- and that mix of medications, the possible brain injury sustained during the first beating and the extreme fear caused by these encounters with these people made him completely lose it.

I have seen this erratic behaviour on many expatriates here in Bulgaria. Last summer I taught in a small town in the Black Sea -not far from Sunny Beach- and two of the British teachers staying at the same apartment I was in went completely paranoid -people with no previous mental struggles whatsoever- to the point they did not want to go to the supermarket on their own and asked us to go with them because they said there were been followed. Then we had an Irish teacher -also completely healthy when she arrived- who the night prior to taking her flight back to Dublin started walking in the streets with no shoes on, approaching people to ask them incoherent questions -we, the rest of the teachers could see this from our balcony- and when she came into the flat we actually had to call the authorities because she got very, very violent and could not stop mumbling things that did not even sound like English. She was taken to a medical centre and no, she had not taken any drugs at all.

Fear makes people do very strange things. I have lived here in Sofia for five months now and so far I have been mugged by a taxi driver -my Bulgarian friends told me not to report it to the police as they said this could bring me more harm than good- , stalked by a beggar for hours -she later turned up just outside WU when I was sending money to my mum and when she asked me for some money and I said "No, sorry" she said to me in fluent English "You don't have any money to give me then, stupid Englishwoman?"- and last Sunday a gypsy child aged roughly 8 or 9 tried to mug me. I kept walking and he spent about 20 minutes following me, punching me on the back, he even tried to slap me several times and put his hand inside the pocket in my coat.

One of my fellow teachers resigned with immediate effect a few weeks back. He later told me by email that "Three weeks is all I could cope with in Bulgaria"; he said that at 4 am he was sweating in bed out of fear so he decided to phone a taxi and sit at the airport until he could get a flight ticket back to the UK.

I just have the feeling this is what happened to Lars. The Balkans is just not for the faint-hearted and he was probably already feeling scared and the injury probably made his mind spiralled out of control.

I am hopeful he is still alive and he just doesn't know who he is.

I wish I could speak Bulgarian so that I could contact authorities to ask if there is any chance we -lots of expats and locals together- could organize a thorough search of that forest.
Many locals are aware of this case and they want to help, I am sure of that because I have discussed this case with my Bulgarian friends and they do care about Lars' fate.
Click to expand...

I don't have anything to add (unfortunately) and although I will be headed back to Sofia this spring for vacation/visit family, I could not agree with this post more.

yurena, thank you for joining us at this thread, I always appreciate your posts.

Stay safe.
 
I definitely wish he could be found. The case of his disappearance has really touched me, I don't know why because I don't know Lars, I think its just the CCTV and the fact that his friends left him in Bulgaria on his own and the communication he had with his mum.
Theres a website on facebook which is about homeless and missing people, people have been taking pictures of homeless people and putting them online, majority of them are from america but keeping my eye open.
Theres pictures of people in a nightclub that were taken in October 2014 on a german forum and lars appears to be in the background weading a green top. It looks so much like him.
 
YellowSunshine said:
I definitely wish he could be found. The case of his disappearance has really touched me, I don't know why because I don't know Lars, I think its just the CCTV and the fact that his friends left him in Bulgaria on his own and the communication he had with his mum.
Theres a website on facebook which is about homeless and missing people, people have been taking pictures of homeless people and putting them online, majority of them are from america but keeping my eye open.
Theres pictures of people in a nightclub that were taken in October 2014 on a german forum and lars appears to be in the background weading a green top. It looks so much like him.
Click to expand...

Was this picture taken in Bulgaria, YellowSunshine, or somewhere else?
Thanks.
 
Ive also read that there is a homeless person on the beach that looks like Lars. I wonder why its not been followed up. Why can't a search party go to beach with dogs?
 
YellowSunshine said:
I think I was mistaken, sorry for misinformation. I think they were taken before he went missing, its all in german so using a google translator, so maybe lost in translation.
https://www.allmystery.de/themen/km113211-1064#id14346121
Can find some photos there.
Click to expand...

It says the picture of the people was taken at a bar in Varna in late October 2014 and they are wondering if the man behind the woman wearing the 'Milan' shirt might be Lars.
The person that posted it says one of the people in the picture knows Lars personally (they don't disclose whom). Other posters are asking what that person has to say about it, if they saw Lars that night. Then later the OP says no, they (person in pic) don't know Lars, but they must have seen his missing poster so they might have been able to recognize him.

Just a bunch of chatter really and no hard leads.
 
JanetElaine said:
It says the picture of the people was taken at a bar in Varna in late October 2014 and they are wondering if the man behind the woman wearing the 'Milan' shirt might be Lars.
The person that posted it says one of the people in the picture knows Lars personally (they don't disclose whom). Other posters are asking what that person has to say about it, if they saw Lars that night. Then later the OP says no, they (person in pic) don't know Lars, but they must have seen his missing poster so they might have been able to recognize him.

Just a bunch of chatter really and no hard leads.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the translation, found it quite hard to follow. Hopefully that information even though not hard leads has been sent to find lars page.

What about the background of this photo? Reading translation, I think this was taken with a girl who knew lars before he disappeared on that holiday? I think people are writing on the forum that this man is Lars but can't follow if picture was taken after or before he disappeared.

https://www.allmystery.de/bilder/km113211-149
 
That site had lots of great photos. Too bad I can't read anything that goes with it. Why is there a woman on his missing poster? And was someone else seen with his necklace?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
YellowSunshine said:
Thanks for the translation, found it quite hard to follow. Hopefully that information even though not hard leads has been sent to find lars page.

What about the background of this photo? Reading translation, I think this was taken with a girl who knew lars before he disappeared on that holiday? I think people are writing on the forum that this man is Lars but can't follow if picture was taken after or before he disappeared.

https://www.allmystery.de/bilder/km113211-149
Click to expand...

What is on his forehead?
It looks almost as if the eyes are dull and cold in this picture, imo speculation.
https://www.allmystery.de/bilder/km113211-49
 
dotr said:
What is on his forehead?
It looks almost as if the eyes are dull and cold in this picture, imo speculation.
https://www.allmystery.de/bilder/km113211-49
Click to expand...

I thought it was a stamp from the nightclub? Where I live the bouncer stamps your hand before you enter the nightclub, so you can go back and forth and also to let them know you've paid for entry, I don't think they'd stamp your head though as they are strict.However it does look too big to be a handstamp and don't know if you get a stamp to get entry into a club in bulgaria.
So don't know the explanation for this photo.
I definetly think this is Lars.
I don't know exactly where the photos have come from but they are good but I can't really understand the forum but use the translator to english but still find it hard to follow.

The picture of the woman on missing poster is Lars mother?
 
YellowSunshine said:
Thanks for the translation, found it quite hard to follow. Hopefully that information even though not hard leads has been sent to find lars page.

What about the background of this photo? Reading translation, I think this was taken with a girl who knew lars before he disappeared on that holiday? I think people are writing on the forum that this man is Lars but can't follow if picture was taken after or before he disappeared.

https://www.allmystery.de/bilder/km113211-149
Click to expand...

I'd be happy to see if I can translate more, but I don't see any text that goes with those pics and don't really have time to dig right now.
 
JanetElaine said:
It says the picture of the people was taken at a bar in Varna in late October 2014 and they are wondering if the man behind the woman wearing the 'Milan' shirt might be Lars.
The person that posted it says one of the people in the picture knows Lars personally (they don't disclose whom). Other posters are asking what that person has to say about it, if they saw Lars that night. Then later the OP says no, they (person in pic) don't know Lars, but they must have seen his missing poster so they might have been able to recognize him.

Just a bunch of chatter really and no hard leads.
Click to expand...

Wait, sorry, I'm just checking that I am not misunderstanding...

So, OP said someone that was in that same picture, knew Lars? But then says they didn't know Lars and only might have recognized him from his misper flyers? Odd thing to backtrack on.

I honestly cannot clearly make out a thing from that picture.
 
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