SPAIN - Daniel, 46, & Liam Poole, 22, British tourists, Estepona, Malaga, 1 Apr 2019

[overtone]

Lolafaith am i right to say its busy around this time also? Alot of people going to this part of spain at this time of year?

 

[lolafaith]

Lolafaith am i right to say its busy around this time also? Alot of people going to this part of spain at this time of year?

Not as busy as August, but yes Easter holidays/school, always busy out there.

 

[Laughing]

Laurynpoole, so very sorry that your family is missing Daniel & Liam still!

 

[ZaZara]

In my long time at WS, 95%+ of the cases I’ve seen of both people and a car missing are the result of a car accident. I think they’ve driven into water and have yet to be found.

Assuming they went to look for a property, my scenario is that they wanted to scour the place and the area before they contacted the agent. The property would have been inland and rather remote. The place of the accident a ravine, coverd with bushes. There may or may not be tire marks, but if no one knows where they were heading to or from, you don't know where to look either.

Would be different if they were hikers / surfers/ divers, accidents could have happened in that case too, but the car would have been found at the head of a trail or near a beach. Daniel and Liam had not gone to Spain for sports.

 

[lolafaith]

I think the family need to ascertain from the police if there was any information on their emails etc regarding looking at properties or registering with agents, then at least they could ring round the agents to see if any properties were looked at, would give a chance of potentially finding a crash site, if this is the situation.

 

[wary]

Sorry but i just don't believe that, I know the area and there is no water apart from the sea which obviously has beaches that are busy, and have life guards, unless they drove up into the mountains and off the top of a mountain, i cannot see that as happening, really just so unlikely, as the roads are pretty good everywhere around estepona area, as a lot of new development.

No reservoirs? How do people get drinking water, or agricultural water?

 

[frisson]

I am leaning toward something happened when looking into buying property or a car from an individual (vs a car lot)

 

[windrower]

Almaz Gebremedhin and her van went missing in Wylie, Texas, on her way to her job at a rehab center three miles from her home.

She and the van were found over a month later, submerged in a pond, just a half-mile from her workplace.

After repeated searches, the family hired a private investigator, who looked at all bodies of water on all of her possible routes to work. He noticed a damaged fence post at a fenced-in pond, and divers subsequently found Almaz and her van in that pond.

The signs of a vehicle going off the road are not always as visible as we think they would be. In a mountainous area with tree-covered ravines, if a car goes through the trees without breaking a lot of tree limbs, the branches would rebound and cover over.

I'm not totally sold on my car accident theory for the Pooles, but here on WS, many people who were missing with their vehicles are found deceased with their vehicles because of an accident.

 

[Elainera]

Maybe they went to the harbour and fell into the ocean.

Google Maps

When you zoom in you can see there are no guard rails.

 

[ZaZara]

Maybe they went to the harbour and fell into the ocean.

Google Maps

When you zoom in you can see there are no guard rails.

View attachment 181551

Wouldn't anyone notice a car going into the water? There are a lot of people in the harbour and there will be security too. Plus it looks like there is a tide.

If they went into the water, I would put my money on one of the embalses. Embalses are the lake-like reservoirs where water is stored for hydroelectricity and drinking water. These are ususally former valleys that have been closed off with a dam. The slopes of these embalses can be quite steep, and the water is deep in certain areas.
Given the geography and the origin of the embalses, there are usually no roads next to them, though there are always exceptions, and small rural roads will lead towards an embalse. It would be hard to imagine what D & L would be doing there, house hunting would not be obvious.

There was a case last year in Catalonia where a young couple went missing. They had planned to go kayaking in one of the embalses in their region. Their car was found in the water, stuck on a rock. If that rock had not been there, the car would have gone down 40? m 80? m or so into the dark, but now it was still visible. (The young couple were later found murdered, a man has been arrested.)

IMHO if D & L ended up in an embalse, foul play should be considered.

Their phones would have stopped once they hit the water. We know when the last contact was with the family, but nothing about their phones.

 

[wary]

Wouldn't anyone notice a car going into the water? There are a lot of people in the harbour and there will be security too. Plus it looks like there is a tide.

If they went into the water, I would put my money on one of the embalses. Embalses are the lake-like reservoirs where water is stored for hydroelectricity and drinking water. These are ususally former valleys that have been closed off with a dam. The slopes of these embalses can be quite steep, and the water is deep in certain areas.
Given the geography and the origin of the embalses, there are usually no roads next to them, though there are always exceptions, and small rural roads will lead towards an embalse. It would be hard to imagine what D & L would be doing there, house hunting would not be obvious.

There was a case last year in Catalonia where a young couple went missing. They had planned to go kayaking in one of the embalses in their region. Their car was found in the water, stuck on a rock. If that rock had not been there, the car would have gone down 40? m 80? m or so into the dark, but now it was still visible. (The young couple were later found murdered, a man has been arrested.)

IMHO if D & L ended up in an embalse, foul play should be considered.

Their phones would have stopped once they hit the water. We know when the last contact was with the family, but nothing about their phones.

Thanks for the new word. Embalses sound exactly like what I was visualizing.

 

[Elainera]

There is an embalse about 10km up the coast from Estepona called Embalse de la Cancelada del Taraje. Right next to it, about 100m from the eastern shore, is a property agent "Marbella Choice Properties".

Sorry can't link for some reason

 

[mrsjonesjo]

As you said, two grown men, and a hire car, disappear completely.....i'm thinking if it had been a car accident they would have been found by now, car, noise, smoke, fire, broken barrier in road, tyre marks, all that sort of stuff - something would have been noticed by someone somewhere i'm sure.

They left their passports in the hotel, and if they had been registering with agents and seeing properties, possibly they might have needed the passports for ID?

It does look like someone dodgy is involved in this somewhere along the line, I just cannot see how 2 adult males and a car can vanish without trace, unless someone has made that happen.

The elephant in the room is how quickly the police put out a press release. They KNOW something happened to them... they probably know what. The police don't start looking for fully grown men in less than a week of being missing unless they know something is wrong.

 

[lolafaith]

The elephant in the room is how quickly the police put out a press release. They KNOW something happened to them... they probably know what. The police don't start looking for fully grown men in less than a week of being missing unless they know something is wrong.

Exactly why I don't buy this fell in the water theory....

The first release seems to have been on 4th April by Sussex Police. I just find it weird that the police would be contacted in the UK and put out an appeal so soon, when they know these two are in spain, they would also have known from Spanish police that the passports were still in the hotel, so it seems strange they were appealing in Sussex, that alone makes me think there is more to the story, and they thought possibly they had come back?

Coupled with the vague reasons for being there, Danny is a mechanic, not the owner of a business (not that we can find out anyway), would he have had the funds required to buy a property? Was he travelling with large amounts of cash? It just feels to me that there was money involved, maybe they were being scammed and something happened, maybe he thought he had a great deal for a property and had to bring cash over. The emails/phone records must have yielded something, and there has been no further update from the Sussex police, if they are worried these two are genuinely missing and they put out an appeal on 4th April, why have they not repeated this?

Hmmm... so many questions!

 

[Pooleinquiry]

I wish we knew if they were looking to buy a car (cash?) or a property or both.

The emails and history/phone should yield some info

They are not not hiking and sightseeing from what I've read, so that's out.

Looking at properties can be sketchy especially if you dont know the area and are in another country. The whole thing is very concerning for two grown men to go missing.

My bad I had assumed that they had gone to buy a vechile as that’s what he’s usual trips abroad were for but it was to look at properties

 

[Pooleinquiry]

Exactly why I don't buy this fell in the water theory....

The first release seems to have been on 4th April by Sussex Police. I just find it weird that the police would be contacted in the UK and put out an appeal so soon, when they know these two are in spain, they would also have known from Spanish police that the passports were still in the hotel, so it seems strange they were appealing in Sussex, that alone makes me think there is more to the story, and they thought possibly they had come back?

Coupled with the vague reasons for being there, Danny is a mechanic, not the owner of a business (not that we can find out anyway), would he have had the funds required to buy a property? Was he travelling with large amounts of cash? It just feels to me that there was money involved, maybe they were being scammed and something happened, maybe he thought he had a great deal for a property and had to bring cash over. The emails/phone records must have yielded something, and there has been no further update from the Sussex police, if they are worried these two are genuinely missing and they put out an appeal on 4th April, why have they not repeated this?

Hmmm... so many questions!

This whole cash is questions being answered by questions it’s frustrating the family and people’s opinions are annoying as they speculate but have no idea

 

[CoverMeCagney]

This whole cash is questions being answered by questions it’s frustrating the family and people’s opinions are annoying as they speculate but have no idea

Surely you know by now whether they had a lot of cash on them - it would point towards them being scammed or robbed for the money.

 

[Skigh]

This is what people do on websleuths.
they ask questions and discuss ideas to try and work out what might have happened.The more facts that are available the more likely they could be found.

 

[Herat]

I just keep wondering if this is a ransom situation that the family just doesnt want to talk about and the police understand.

 

[Skigh]

Don't think the family would be on here if that was the case.