Friend of woman missing from yacht in Virgin Islands speaks out
Andrew Baldwin on the search for his missing friend Sarm Heslop
A 911 call placed by a Michigan man reporting his U.K. girlfriend missing was never recorded, her family revealed Tuesday, the latest apparent misstep in the case nearly two years after her disappearance in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Sarm Heslop's then-boyfriend, 46-year-old Ryan Bane, reported her missing from his 47-foot catamaran the Siren Song on March 8, 2021.
Heslop, a former flight attendant, linked up with Bane in the Caribbean and was working as a cook alongside him as he chartered the vessel.
The two were seen at the 420 to Center Bar the night she went missing, and although police initially said there was no surveillance video, they showed some to the family last year.
Sarm Heslop was last seen on March 7, 2021, leaving a bar on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands with her American boyfriend Ryan Bane. (FindSarm.com)
"The inconsistencies in this investigation have troubled me from the start," Heslop's mother, Brenda Street, said in a statement Tuesday. She is asking British authorities to intervene in the investigation.
Police showed the video to Heslop’s parents in March 2022, around one year after she vanished. But when they asked for a copy of the video, police denied their request.
According to her parents, the version of the video they were shown ended before the couple got into their dinghy.
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"We have been told that the CCTV wasn’t working in the local area due to a power outage on the island," Street said. "And now we discover that the 911 call Ryan made to the Coast Guard was never recorded! Something doesn’t add up."
Sarm Heslop and Ryan Bane in a split photo. Bane was arrested in 2011 in a domestic violence case after allegedly attacking his ex-wife. (Virgin Islands Police Department/Oakland County Sheriff's Office )
Bane reported Heslop missing to police around 2:30 a.m. on March 8, 2021. Police told him to contact the U.S. Coast Guard if she had fallen off his 47-foot yacht. He did so around 11:45 a.m.
Police have said they could not confirm whether Heslop returned to the boat after being seen leaving the bar with Bane, although her family says her passport, wallet and phone were left on his boat.
"What I want to know," Street said Tuesday, "is if they went to the dock and spoke to Ryan and conducted a search that night, why didn’t they look on the boat first? Why weren’t any of the neighboring boats moored nearby woken and searched? Why did the police not immediately involve the Coast Guard?"
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Virgin Islands police never searched Bane's boat and previously told Fox News Digital that the court denied their application for a search warrant. Multiple U.S.-based investigators have blasted that excuse.
Sarm Heslop has been missing since March 8, 2021. Boyfriend Ryan Bane told police she vanished from his 47-foot catamaran, the Siren Song, overnight. (Find Sarm)
"They have enough probable cause, I think," Jerry Forrester, a former FBI agent and private investigator who has worked extensively in the Caribbean, told Fox News three weeks after the woman’s disappearance. "She’s missing, and she was on that boat."
"If the boat belonged to Joe Blow, or the boyfriend, or even her, but she didn't go missing from the boat, maybe then they wouldn't be able to get a search warrant," he added six months later, when they still hadn't searched the vessel. "But she went missing, probably, from the boat. There's enough probable cause there to get a search warrant."
FLASHBACK: Sarm Heslop was last seen on this 47-foot catamaran nearly two weeks ago
Bane’s attorney has said a Coast Guard crew performed an "on-site inspection of the vessel and an on-site interview without limitation," but USCG officials said that they had been "denied full access" to the vessel and issued citations.
Without a warrant, Bane was under no obligation to voluntarily allow police to search his boat – and through his attorney he has denied any involvement in Heslop’s disappearance. He has not been named a suspect or accused of wrongdoing, and the boat is believed to have been sold last year.
Sarm Heslop worked as a UK-based flight attendant before meeting Ryan Bane, a Michigan yachtsman, and joining him on his 47-foot charter vessel as a cook. (FindSarm.com)
Bane has a 2011 domestic violence conviction for attacking his ex-wife, after they got home from a wedding in Michigan.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact the U.S. Virgin Islands Police Department or Crime Stoppers USVI at (800) 222-TIPS (8477).
The department is also investigating the death of another woman on the same island – Jamie Cail, a former champion swimmer for Team USA whose cause of death has not yet been revealed.
"It is absolutely devastating to read about Jamie Cail and our thoughts go out to her friends and family, now suffering similar frustrations trying to find answers and justice for their loved one through the VIPD’s insensitive and insufficient resources," Street said Tuesday.
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Heslop is 5 feet, 8 inches tall with a slim build, brown hair and a bright-colored tattoo on her left shoulder that includes a seahorse, a butterfly, a bird and a pink flower.
Friends have set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise reward money for information that cracks the case.
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