Where is Darryl Fornatora? Florida man disappears in Dominican Republic

it was supposed to be just six days a caribbean adventure of surfing and fun in the sun but daryl fornitura never came home what was going through your mind at that point something's really wrong daryl's family would suddenly embark on a desperate quest to find him or answers but will they ever find either i was lied to by so many people that my conclusion was that something bad happened to daryl and they're covering it up tennis pro daryl fornitural already lived in a virtual paradise palm beach florida where he had a booming business and a family who idolized him what should we know about your son he was funny and adventurous oh god he was just so loving daryl had a warm personality he was not the totally gregarious type that would make a lot of noise but he had a warmth to him that just kind of flowed naturally with people the 45 year old divorce bachelor liked to work hard and play hard too he just lived life big that's how he was he loved to surf i mean he worked to surf it was his passion he loved it women surf and food and that that's pretty much what made him tick and in that order daryl had a like-minded friend in local harbor pilot matt rigby tell me about matt rigby who is he to you in the family he's a good friend of my brothers they've known each other at the time of the trip about six years they went on surf trips together to blow off some steam matt and daryl planned their latest adventure a six-day surfing trip to cabaret a small fishing town on the north coast of the dominican republic he came to dinner on sunday night as normal and we were talking and he said to me mom this trip you don't have to worry about me because the dominican republic is just like being in the states and my phone i can use it just like i would if i were here but like many mothers nancy worries anyway so that very monday as daryl travels with matt he stays in close touch he texted me when he was at the airport he texted me when he left security and he texted me when he got to cabaret and then he knew that i'd want to know that he was arriving safely in puerto plata so he just texted i'm here he took the time because he always wanted you to feel at ease he did that for you he did that for me when daryl and matt land in puerto plata they rent a car and drive to their rented villa at the perla marina 10 minutes outside the town of cabarete for the next 24 hours daryl keeps his mom in the loop about his adventures what was the last communication you had with him what day what time that was tuesday the 26th at 6 28 p.m he texted that he'd had an epic day in the water five hours water time he was exhausted and ready to crash love you call you tomorrow but wednesday comes and goes with no communication from daryl i thought i'm not going to be a worrywart mother he's a grown man on thursday when he hadn't communicated with me i was really getting very nervous then on friday daryl's family receives a call that turns their lives upside down about 8 30 in the morning i get a call and he said it's matt rigby and he's calling to let us know that daryl was missing matt rigby told him that he hadn't seen daryl since the 27th according to matt on wednesday daryl leaves on a surf scout to the nearby town of sasua with a local man named gaspar daryl and matt had rented surfboards from gas bar the day before hours later daryl allegedly returns to the villa acting extremely paranoid daryl was behaving strangely saying he wanted to get out of there let's fly home let's go and matt said no you're fine you're just i don't know what you're being paranoid about let's go shopping in downtown cabaret we'll get you about to eat it'll all be fine once in town matt decides to slip into this local surf shop to buy souvenirs daryl doesn't go in the shop with him and when he comes out daryl's gone he said he couldn't find him and he looked around the stores and looked up and down the beach and he looked all over over five hours i searched i searched everywhere i said i went up the beach back to be in the town all over the town looking for daryl and i couldn't find him and when daryl's worried father asked about the status of the search matt surprises him with his current location he was at daryl's place of work and he was calling from there because he didn't have a telephone number he was looking for our home phone number in daryl's personal belongings at his place at work daryl's family is shocked just two days after his friend goes missing matt is back in the states in daryl's palm beach office that right away struck a strange accord with me because all you have to do is google us and he knew where he lived he had been there did he call police or the embassy did he call for help at all besides heading back to the states as far as we know absolutely not he never called any of the local police he didn't call the embassy he kept saying we needed to do that he didn't do anything a caribbean surfing vacation becomes a journey to hell daryl fornitura has headed to the dominican republic with his buddy matt rigby but just two days in daryl is nowhere to be found the kharibe surf shop is the last place matt rigby says he saw daryl alive he told his parents they were shopping and he just simply vanished matt allegedly claims daryl was acting paranoid and afraid for his safety but matt never reports daryl missing to dominican authorities and two days later he returns home to the u.s with bizarre news for daryl's family at some point in that day he tells us about a search and rescue person a man named leon alter leon alter is the canadian expat and founder of crime stoppers and matt somehow knows he's the man the call for help in fact matt immediately returns to the dominican republic with his wife paulina plus 5 thousand dollars presumably to pay alter alter post pleas for tips about daryl on social media and allegedly dispatches search crews what did the u.s embassy say about him when you inquired they said he's some guy that does search and rescue they were really not clear on who he was or how he operated either they just knew that he was involved in and could offer information help us with information frustrated by a lack of results from alter and a lack of action from the u.s embassy and dominican police christina and her husband decide to fly down to search for daryl themselves my brother and i had a very special relationship we lived very different lifestyles but we were so close and we talked all the time and it was i got your back no matter what and that's the way i feel now i owe it to him that's my mission he wouldn't stop till he found answers for me and i can't stop till i find them for him christina makes arrangements with matt rigby to join forces when they arrive but in another strange twist that doesn't happen when we landed in santa domingo on february 2nd i texted him and he said my wife and i flew back last night and that was that was it wow what was going through your mind at that point something's really wrong christina and her husband find a lot wrong in cabaret discovering a sleazy and corrupt underworld right out of a paperback novel it is isolated and it is very much the wild wild west up there the countless stories we heard of tourists being drugged their drinks being drugged marijuana being laced set up with prostitutes set up by driving being stopped on the road by police and you know give me a thousand dollars or you're under arrest and interestingly when we uncovered all of these stories the common theme for those that are targeted single western for males and her husband the local police become more of a hindrance than any help were you allowed to roam freely no we had an escort at all times it was sold to us as for our protection but i i believe it was just as much to know what we were doing as it was to keep us safe is this a cover-up to you for their reputation for the tourism what do you make of this absolutely from from the get-go the biggest obstacle that we have encountered is keeping his missing posters up we would put them up they would be torn down christina returns home utterly discouraged with zero faith in dominican law enforcement daryl's family doubles down on the help of self-proclaimed crime stopper leon alter and that help came with money over time yes that is correct we did make as much as 13 000 in donations what did he bring to you what information did he gather that is a good question it doesn't take long before leon alter himself raises even more suspicions do you think leon at all was helping your family in any way well i thought he was in the beginning yeah and he's the one that organized the search in the beginning so he says i mean i wasn't there the one thing that still is inexplicable is uh he's the one that does all of the uh security cameras in downtown caperette so it just so happens that the time when daryl went missing those exact times those tapes weren't available they weren't recording and leon is he legit in your mind or no i don't know the answer to that you feel you were misguided by this man yes fed up with what they perceived as the labyrinth of lies the fornitura family hires private investigators from the united states among them michael ceravolo and richard pimentel of beau dietl and associates the forniture family hired us because they didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the local police a retired new york police detective and a native of the dominican republic pimentel travels back to the exotic island to shake the trees i interviewed many people during my stay in the dominican republic and i have a feeling that they're all covering up for something that's my feeling weeks have passed since the mysterious disappearance of daryl fornitora in the dominican republic and his family grows desperate for answers all we need is the crumb someone saw something someone knows something but between daryl's evasive travel buddy matt rigby the tangled red tape of dominican law enforcement and the fruitless actions of a mercenary crime stopper daryl's family soon takes things to the next level you've done a lot to try and gather information on your own private investigators we had three different private investigators among these investigators is richard pementel a dominican native who travels to cabarete to look into daryl's disappearance and what he learns is eye-opening the strip of restaurants and bars alongside the beach where dao disappeared it's heavy prostitution at night that's where you go and buy drugs in cabaret sometime and a lot of those restaurants are owned by people connected with the mob or some kind of organized crime from italy and i believe that the the police force does security for a lot of these establishments on the beach so they're all intertwined in that whole world navigating the seedy streets of cabarete pimentel is able to track down a promising lead the last known person to talk to daryl outside the same surf shop where matt rigby says he last saw his friend i found a witness a canadian national her name is jacqueline beck she said that she was walking into town and she saw daryl and matt walking in front of her and she noticed that daryl was acting irrational and then when matt went in the store daryl approached her and said was asking her for help he said i need to leave this country he was paranoid asking if there were any gangs in the in cabaret if there were any mobs she asked him if he had consumed marijuana he said yes and then darryl kind of panicked a little bit because a couple of kids approached the locals and he backed off from her and then just left jacqueline beck's statement backs up matt rigby's claim about daryl's state of mind prior to his disappearance but what or who could cause him such extreme paranoia enter emilio gaspar the local who rents out surfboards and took daryl to nearby playa cesua in the hours before he started acting paranoid according to gaspar he wanted to show daryl a good surfing spot but i'm from the area i know the met the spot that he mentioned was a regular beach where there is no surfing taking place in saussure so he's lying right there there he was showing daryl a good surfing spot he's a very shady character he's what we call a player i believe he deals drugs he facilitates drugs and prostitutes if you're looking to buy some drugs cesua would be a good place to go when he went to sasua he could have purchased something that was laced with a drug and just been a victim that way and then you know easy prey to someone who wanted to rob him drag him off somewhere was the marijuana daryl admitted to smoking laced with something that made him fear people were after him whatever the answer one fact remains daryl did disappear his paranoia may have been founded which begs the question what happened in cesua i think daryl might have rubbed someone the wrong way there over maybe a drug deal purchasing some recreational drugs or maybe hooking up with a local prostitute could his trusted guide gaspar have had a hand in daryl's fate it's possible is possible because he he i wouldn't put it past him he he could be the type of person that could get involved in something like that if gaspar knows anything he's not talking no one is and just like daryl's sister christina pimentel suspect local police are actually working against the cause i met a person that he was kind of giving me information on what was going on and that person was picked up by the police was told i believe you've been talking to a detective from the united states you have to remember that you live here your family's here and you're the only one that can get in trouble so you know you should be careful what you do and then they let him go he called me in a panic so why would they do that you know what i mean something's going on and we can't get to the bottom because of the police involvement pimentel finally does meet with the local officer in charge of the case and receives some shocking news i wanted to compare no notes and talk to him and he just cut me off he said oh that case is closed we have two witnesses that saw him go in the water and never come out he drowned that case is closed according to dominican police witnesses on cabarete beach claim they saw daryl wade into the water and not come out but pimentel says no way i don't believe that he drowned because uh of the circumstances and the stories that i heard doesn't add up to drowning and he was an athlete a professional surfer where he supposedly drowned was that the regular beach was four feet deep christina doesn't buy it either is your brother a good swimmer he's an excellent swimmer he grew up in the water that was his life surfing in the water were his life during her next visit to the dominican republic christina meets with one of the witnesses to daryl's so-called drowning i said we've been told that you said you saw him swim out and never come back and he's like no i saw he went up to his chest and he was in the water and that was it and then i didn't pay attention to what he did after that the family says this kind of account shouldn't be enough to call the case closed the national police were the ones who were saying that oh you know it looks like it's drowning moving on they were just very quick to rule it in accidental drowning so they just don't want this pinned on their reputation that is correct it impacts tourism they do not like that that is a barrier that we have absolutely come up against but there's another undeniable matter everybody tells me that whenever somebody drowns no matter how long it takes the emotional tends to spit the body out and that never happened with that in mid-march a florida news reporter calls the drowning into question then almost two months after daryl went missing something incredible happens his broadcast aired on i believe it was march 15th the next day after that piece aired daryl's wallet washes ashore daryl's wallet still contains his credit cards id and 462 dollars in cash literally a local kind of druggy bomb that lives on the beach found it the same beach where he supposedly allegedly drowned correct where the wallet washes ashore is maybe a hundred meters down the beach from where he supposedly swam into the water seven weeks prior so in seven weeks the wallet went out supposedly in the shorts my brother was wearing which he doesn't generally take his wallet into the water with him and then washes back in the same spot seven weeks later and a wallet with hundreds of dollars in it still intact when it was found that is correct and i can tell you no one would not keep that money why was that wallet turned in that's not normal behavior for how it works down there pimentel agrees daryl's wallet washing ashore does nothing but raised further suspicions about a local conspiracy i was lied to by the police i was lied to by some witnesses i was lied to by so many people that my conclusion was that something bad happened to daryl and they're covering it up everybody for some reason is very scared to talk in that everybody seems to include daryl's friend and travel partner matt rigby months after his disappearance daryl fornitorna's family is still no closer to finding answers he was a wonderful warm caring loving son and i miss that every single day is there a thought in your mind that maybe he's alive no with all the roadblocks the investigation has hit one person seems to hold the key daryl's travel partner matt rigby but matt has been shockingly elusive after he didn't join christina and her husband during their initial visit to the island christina did manage to get him on the phone i called him to kind of say you know what in the world happened i thought we were going to meet why did you leave and he really never had a clear answer was this also the same call where he breaks down in tears he actually broke down crying and was saying i can't believe this is happening um and he actually said no more surf trips for maddie my wife is never going to let me go on a surf trip again and that's what his tears were for and shortly afterwards he ended up hiring a criminal defense attorney that's correct since then the fornitura family says it's been mostly radio silence from matt rigby's camp is he being quiet because he's cowering or because he was involved i don't know that you can keep as quiet as he is kept just because you saw something bad happen and as christina looks into matt's actions in the days after daryl's disappearance deeper suspicions take root when matt left the dominican republic he takes my brother's surfboard his laptop computer his digital camera his gopro camera and a lot of his clothes as well even his clothes exactly it made no sense at all matt eventually gave those items back to the family but once christina takes possession of daryl's laptop she finds what she believes are a suspect series of emails sent by matt throughout the 48 hours after daryl vanished on the face of it that doesn't seem so odd but you're on vacation with your buddy you both have cell phones why are you sending an email in the bulk of those emails matt is updating his m.i.a body on his whereabouts and asking him to get in touch in one message matt attaches an enticing photo of himself and some babes at a bar allegedly awaiting daryl's arrival the embassy did time stamps on the emails and um one of the emails he says you know i'm i'm gonna catch a flight in a couple of hours i'm getting ready to leave the villa when he sends that email he's sitting in the airport in puerto plata christina also doesn't buy the handwritten note matt allegedly left at the villa letting daryl know he was flying back to the states asking where he went and if he was safe what are you feeling when you're reading through all of that anger i mean there's there's raw unadulterated anger he knows what happened to my brother in another odd twist matt returned the rental car before he flew out even though he allegedly thought daryl was still somewhere on the island matt's timeline for that also gives christina pause we know he returned that rental car at 12 30 to the airport in puerto plata he tells us and has told us repeatedly that he was on his way to the airport at about nine o'clock so there's about three hours of time that is unaccounted for he says he just went straight to the airport he didn't do anything there's about 100 miles missing unaccounted for that that car traveled christina later learned that matt's suspect behavior didn't end there that day my husband and i traveled back to the dominican republic to meet with the embassy and one of those agents said we got the airport footage of matt on camera at the airport he actually goes into a bathroom changes clothes completely like shirt pants shoes even his baseball cap and the agents told us he was behaving very very strangely i did not see that with my own eyes so it's a second count story from the agents who did see it the question is why did matt rigby put extra mileage on the car why did he fly home only to immediately return to the dominican republic with five thousand dollars all of those things that he did were done with a purpose a specific purpose stuart kaplan the third private investigator hired by daryl's family floats a theory there has been some rumors and some conjecture as to whether or not daryl was being held against his will and whether or not a ransom was required to have been paid one of the theories is whether or not matt returned to the united states to retrieve cash to return to the dominican republic only to find that unfortunately daryl had already been murdered was matt strong-armed by some bad operators he certainly had plenty of chances to explain himself there was an agent from the embassy who was going to meet with matt per our request and matt agreed they had a date scheduled they had the interview scheduled the agent flew into miami and as soon as he landed got a text saying can't do it sorry talk to my lawyer but rigby says he has provided information four months after daryl's disappearance rigby's then criminal lawyer told the national magazine rigby had spoken to the fbi and a representative from the u.s department of state and that his client is not withholding anything crime watch daily traveled to palm beach florida to ask matt rigby for ourselves two places are registered to matt rigby including the apartment building over my shoulder it's about five minutes away from his workplace we think he's home we're gonna go door knock and hope he'll talk to us hi matt hi i'm melissa with crimewatch daily here to talk to you about your friend daryl do you have a few minutes no i'm sorry matt listen the family has talked to us and they feel that you know more than you're leading on to there's a lot of weighty accusations i think you should address these on camera or in a statement we want to let your voice be heard on this you're going to want your voice to be heard on this i just want to be fair i don't want to leave without giving you a chance anything at all you could say there's a lot of questions the family has for you sir he did not want to talk and this was a fear for the family they believe he knows what happened to their son and it's clear he's going to remain silent what is most frustrating matt not being forthcoming with the information that we feel he must have is probably the worst part on the best day matt is a complete coward and the worst friend in the history of friends and did something or didn't do something that contributed to daryl being killed daryl fornitura's fate remains unresolved for now i think that if the if the united states embassy pressures the police department i'm sure that somebody's going to speak and this case could be solved but unless that happens you know we have to just rely on luck and and time the dominican republic is a pass-through country with respect to the importation of drugs into the united states it will be just a matter of time to whether it's the fbi the dea the u.s embassy comes into contact with a specific individual who has the right information to be able to connect the dots as to exactly what happened to daryl fornitoro in the meantime daryl's family must live with the pain of his absence my husband's deployed currently and and my kids miss their uncle because he was always the one that during these difficult times during deployments would step in and be that father figure and they don't have that now and it's hard it's very painful in honor of him we've got to do something to finances for him because this should never have happened and we we need to get answers not having his phone call every morning not having his hugs that's the hard part just not knowing what happened without closure it is like living that first day over every day for my parents for my family for all of us we did talk at the phone with leon alter the mercenary crime stopper who told us he believes daryl drowned but then again quote for all i know he might turn up somewhere in mexico 10 years from now we requested an on-camera interview but he told us he couldn't do one because he's a quote agent of interpol something we've not been able to confirm

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 879,433

Keywords: Darryl Fornatora, West Palm Beach Florida, Florida missing, Dominican Republic missing, Nancy Fornatora, Gilbert Fornatora, Christina Hendrex, harbor pilot Matt Rigby, Cabarete Dominican Republic, Puerto Plata, Perla Marina, Sosua D.R., Carib Surf Shop, Crime Stoppers Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo missing, Leon Alter, Michael Ciravolo, Richard Pimentel, Beau Dietl and Associates, Emilio Gaspar, Stuart Kaplan, Michael Dutko, Crime Watch Daily, True Crime Daily

Id: QMBFzuIJgao

Length: 32min 36sec (1956 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 21 2020