Blonde, beautiful, and now missing, Robyn Gardner took a secret trip to Aruba that no one in her family knew about until two days after she vanished without a trace. Her travel companion, an older man she met online, purchased a $1.5 million travel insurance policy and made himself the beneficiary. What happened on that island has remained a mystery, until now.
Because Robyn Gardner went missing from the same Aruban resort Natalee Holloway vanished from six years earlier, her case also became a media sensation. "If you think you know what happened during the investigation that followed, you may be in for a shocking surprise," says local author Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff.
Nemcoff, a bestselling author who has been featured on TV's "Access Hollywood" and praised by Playboy Magazine, investigated the Robyn Gardner disappearance for his latest true crime book,Vanished Beauty.
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"It turns out there was a very distinct parallel between Robyn's case and that of Tina Watson," claims Nemcoff. Watson mysteriously died one week into a dream Australian honeymoon back in 2003, leading authorities to eventually arrest her husband Gabe on charges that he had premeditated her murder to collect her life insurance policy.
"I went in looking for the perfect murder, but what I discovered in stunning detail, amidst the shady characters, bumbling investigators and extremely lurid details was a jaw-dropping number of twists and turns in both cases," says Nemcoff.
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"Vanished Beauty," a follow up to Nemcoff bestselling "Fatal Sunset: Deadly Vacations," also features a very controversial new theory by Nemcoff about the ultimate fate of Robyn Gardner. "Inside this gripping true story involving alleged ties to human trafficking, kidnapping, fraud and deceit, there was a truth that had been ignored by the public until now," Nemcoff says. According to the author these are not fairy tales with happy endings. "I research and write about these things because I have a motto that I hope can save someone's life: Dare to be aware."
Vanished Beauty is available in paperback and for Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Kobo.