My friend Barbara disappeared in early December four years ago and is still one of Costa Rica’s cold case missing persons. I know that December is for religious holidays and our dark solstice. But December is also for Barbara.

Remember Barbara is her story according to me, as close to the truth as I know it to be. I call it fiction in a fading hope that it is–and because although I have no doubt that Barbara is dead, there is no proof. I don’t know what happened, only what might have happened. I know she vanished without a trace and was never heard from again.

There are five Mondays in December and I have divided the story into five segments, and I will post one of them each Monday.

All of the names of people and most of the names of places have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent-until-proven-guilty and others close by. Make no mistake: I will never stop hoping that everything I have supposed is wrong. Everyone in this story is a friend I have lost.

Read the story

Barbara and me on November 7, 2010, three weeks before she disappeared.

http://codygear.com/cold-case-missing-persons-in-costa-rica/