Clue in Missing Writer Case

N E W A R K, N.J., Aug. 25 -- A search dog picked up the scent of a missing New York-based travel writer in the car trunk of a resort bartender in Jamaica. The FBI is testing the trunk’s lining and the bartender’s boots for clues, the agency said this week.

Results of the forensic tests should be available in about six weeks, the dog handler, Harry Oakes Jr., who operates a private search group, told the Daily Record of Parsippany.

Miami FBI spokesman Terry Nelson told the newspaper that no suspects have “been zeroed down.”

Messages left for Oakes and the Miami FBI, which is assisting Jamaican police, were not immediately returned.

Oakes and his search dog, Valorie, were in Jamaica Aug. 13–20, nearly three months since the disappearance of Claudia Kirschhoch, a Morristown native.

Her father, reached Wednesday, dismissed suggestions that the dog found evidence relating to Claudia.

“To jump to that conclusion is totally ridiculous and very upsetting to us,” Fred Kirschhoch said. He declined to comment further.

Oakes, who operates International K-9 Search and Rescue Services, of Portland, Ore., volunteered to search for free, the newspaper said.

A Change of Story

The bartender has admitted having a date with the 29-year-old resident of Queens, N.Y., a day before she was last seen, a Sandals Resorts International official said last month.

Anthony Grant, a bartender at the Sandals-owned Beaches Negril, originally told investigators that he did not know the Morristown native, according to the Sandals official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kirschhoch, an editor for Frommer’s Travel Guides in New York, arrived in Jamaica on May 24, as part of a Sandals-sponsored tour for travel writers that was to continue to Cuba. But when the Cuba leg was canceled because of visa problems, and all flights back to New York were booked, she opted to stay at Beaches as a guest of Sandals.

Grant eventually told FBI agents that he took Kirschhoch to a local bar the night of May 26 and then accompanied her to the hotel, the Sandals official said.