FL FL - Sandy Seligman, 26, Miami, 17 August 1980 - from Canada

[carbuff]

The perp could have dropped off the car as to not have the rental car agency alerting the police over a possible stolen vehicle. Although, it is interesting that the car was dropped off the same day Sandy was to take that flight.

Yes, that would make sense.

 

[Wanting2Help]

Sandy is now in NamUs...

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/19109/8/

 

[danzn16]

That is great! I hope his family provides DNA for NAMUS also

 

[Richard]

Bumping this case up. Any news?

 

[SisterGrimm]

I found a John Doe that Does resemble Sandy. This man was even found on Miami Beach, Florida.
He was found wearing swim trunks, a watch and sneakers. His body was discovered floating face down in the surf. He is estimated to be between 25-40 in age. That is a very wide age range. If this is Sandy the John Doe would be 55 years old. I have met people that looked as young as this Doe and were middle aged. Doe also looks like he is balding a little in the front.
The unidentified man was also 6'9" in height and 335 pounds measured. This is a pretty big man.
He apparently had codeine and alcohol in his system (per this reddit link):Who is Miami Beach's John Doe?: Unidentified Body of 6'7, 335-pound Man Found Floating in the Water on Christmas Eve 2009 : UnresolvedMysteries
But this page does have a few discrepancies including his height and color of his swim trunks.
John Doe: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Just as an update Sandy's full name is Sanders Maurice Seligman.
Sanders Maurice Seligman – The Charley Project

I find it very suspicious that Sandy promised his mother emeralds worth $1,500 (*CP) and vanished after he dropped off a rental car (which could track down his whereabouts). Sandy had a lot of money apparently.
I also find it odd that he vanished right after he drops of the rental and never makes a flight he already paid for. It sounds like Money wasn't an issue for him. He had to of vanished right after dropping off the car. He could have grabbed a taxi but how is it that he didn't make the flight if that's the case? He could have been set up by the driver or never planned on coming home. Miami was a huge hot spot for drug peddling and I find it odd that Sandy didn't call his mother the day before or the day he vanished before boarding his flight (August 17th).
Just to help put a visual in your head in the 80's everybody used payphones or used public phones. I doubt Sandy was a hitchhiker carrying all that money, tickets, luggage and his passport.

 

[caityvancouver]

Hi Everyone,

I grew up hearing about Sandy. My mom and my grandmother knew his mother, Edith. I have always been drawn to finding out what happened to him. I do have a little more information about him than what I saw here. Sandy (Sanders Maurice Seligman) was adopted and so unfortunately his DNA would be different than the rest of his families. Sandy did have a younger brother (also adopted) and his family lived above a camera shop in Vancouver in the Dunbar area (18th or 19th on Dunbar street).


Here are some things I do know about Sandy:

-He was very sweet, kind and also shy

-He was very close to his mother and brother (she lived for her sons)

- His dad passed away when he was in high school.

-According to my grandmother, he had called his mother a few days before and told her he was bringing her back some nice jewelry. He had kept in touch with his mother often throughout the trip.

-They were a very close family and were devoted to each other.

-His family lived modestly.


I plan on going to the Vancouver archives to get more info and newspaper articles about his disappearance and his mother's desperate search for her son.


I think it’s great that people who have never met him are trying to find out what happened to him.

 

[honeyiv]

Charley Project says he was in Miami after he returned from a Caribbean vacation to the Bahamas and Virgin Islands.

 

[caityvancouver]

Here are some articles I pulled up from when Sandy went missing.

 

[caityvancouver]

Here is another article.

 

[Valiant]

So according to the one newspaper clipping, the rental car was turned in after the he should have boarded the flight, not before (7 hours after).

That changes things a lot.

 

[caityvancouver]

Here are some points I pulled from all three articles and other online stuff. I hope it's correct.

Last time his mother heard from him was on August 15th. He phoned his mother from his great aunts house in Miami.

Checked out of his Miami Hotel (The Singapore Resort Hotel) on August 17th

He checked out of the hotel in time to make his flight which was scheduled for 11:15am

The address of the Singapore hotel was 9601 Collins Ave, Bal Harbour, FL 33154, USA which was a 25 minute drive to the Miami International Airport.

His rental car was returned to the rental car agency at (6:00pm) which was about 7 hours after he was supposed to board the 11:15am flight home. From the article, it looks like the rental car agency was located at the airport.

His airline ticket was not used.

May have had $1,200 dollars in gems (he bought them to put in a ring for his mother) and possessions.

His cards and accounts were never touched EXCEPT for three months after his disappearance. One of his credit cards was being used by a young couple in the New York Bronx district. Police missed catching the couple by 4 minutes.


A week before his disappearance there was a lot of rioting in Miami.
The Freedomtown riots took place on 11 August 1980 when hundreds of Cuban refugees began rioting at a detention center (nicknamed "Freedomtown") under the Interstate 95 in Downtown Miami in Florida, United States, burning tents and attacking immigration and nationalization guards with pipes, sticks, and rocks.

On August 16th, a day before Sandy went missing, There were 2 separate plane hijackings at the Miami Airport.

Weather on August 17th, 1980 was
Lows of 79.0 F
Highs of 89.1 F

 

[Aurora90]

Was he brother his bio brother? If so, and they happen to have John does dna on file then his brothers dna could be used to look for him.

 

[mst]

i find it odd that a young man fresh out of college would be able to afford a 21 day vacation to the Carribean and then stay at The Singapore. It was reported that his father was deceased and he deferred a year before starting law school so one has to wonder what he was up to to be able to afford emeralds (reported colombian!).Then he plans to take a bus from Seattle to Vancouver BC? Less chance of being searched crossing into Canada? Given the climate at the time in Miami and the new influence of the stuff into Vancouver, he could have gotten wrapped up in the wrong business trying to make a buck

 

[Aurora90]

Does anyone know what airline he was flying on?

 

[HopeRains]

Article clipped from The Miami Herald

Clipping found in The Miami Herald published in Miami, Florida on 10/8/1980.

www.newspapers.com

Some info from the article above:

• Sandy studied business and languages at UBC. Fluent in Spanish, Italian, French, Hebrew, and Japanese. Worked ordering merchandise for a plumbing company. Loved to travel. Only issue with LE was a speeding ticket. Per his family, was not involved in drugs.
• Detective on the case indicated 2 elements stood out to him. (1) upset about recent breakup with girlfriend of 7 months, and (2) his itinerary seemed odd (see below as pulled from article)

July 27 Seattle->Atlanta->New York
Aug 5 New York->Bahamas
Aug 8 Bahamas->Miami->Puerto Rico
Aug 11 Puerto Rico->Virgin Islands
Aug 13 Virgin Islands->Puerto Rico
Aug 14 Puerto Rico->Miami

• He checked out of his hotel in plenty of time to make the 11:15 Eastern (capitalized, so I'm assuming Eastern airlines) flight.
• He returned his rental car to Hertz seven hours after his flight was to leave.

One would assume his photographic identity was verified at hotel check-out and the Hertz return desk given he was reported as missing by his mother to both Canadian and Metro police (according to the article, when he did not arrive in Vancouver on the bus he was to arrive on - or the one after - no date is provided). The article does not state his photographic identity was verified.

Given he was apparently very committed to his family, and per the article made at least some 7 calls to his mother during his travels, including one on 8/15 indicating he would be home in 2 days, I personally find it very unlikely that he would not have called to say his schedule had changed and he was going to be late.

Personally, I do not find his itinerary to be odd, particularly for a younger person. For someone who loved to travel, he may have just been doing as much as he could in the time he had to do it.

For me, and given his familial relationships, I believe it most likely he never made it to the airport.

 

[mst]

Love to know when he told her he bought the emeralds in miami

 

[HopeRains]

I believe the young couple using his credit card in New York are probably more involved in his case. He originally flew out of Seattle going to NY for 7 days. Had he lost his credit card there at the time, and given he was continuing travel, I believe he likely would have reported his card as stolen/lost. If he did actually return the rental car (in the thread somewhere it's indicated the location was off-site from the airport), most likely to me that something happened between there and the airport and/or he didn't actually return the car, someone else did, making off with his possessions - including the emeralds and credit card.