interesting update to story.
Report: Sweden Sends Cop To Investigate Death of Sailor in Colombia
Report: Sweden Sends Cop To Investigate Death of Sailor in Colombia
No ID of the Body; Family Fears Cremation Will Preclude an Autopsy
PETER SWANSON
3/14/2024
Marcus Reslow shows an interviewer the area of his lower arm and wrist with a surgically implanted metal plate, an easy way to idenfity a body.
It sounds like the plot from the latest Netflix series.
A Swedish sailor shipwrecks in the Caribbean, a body washes up on the beach, then… nothing.
No one formally identifies the corpse. Colombian authorities say nothing about an autopsy, even though the dead sailor had recently survived pirate attacks.
Seeking answers Sweden sends its own police investigator to find out what’s really going on, and the sailor’s family waits anxiously back home, fearing the body may be cremated before they can learn the truth.
Unlike most YouTube sailors, Jens Brambusch is an author and experienced journalist. He has been covering the Marcus Reslow story ever since the solo sailor was attacked by pirates in Columbia on December 29. Float is a German boating magazine, which, unlike its U.S. counterparts, has a “true crime” coverage category.
Earlier this week Float published a story, in which Bramsbusch wrote:
Float has learned from family sources that the Swedish police have already sent a special investigator to Colombia. An indication that the embassy assumes a non-natural cause of death? In response to this and the simple question as to whether it is customary in Sweden for police officers to be sent to natural deaths abroad, the ministry diplomatically replies: “We would refer you to the Swedish police authority for further information.” In other words, a Swedish police officer is on site.
Loose Cannon asked Reslow’s brother if he could confirm that the Swedish government has sent an investigator to Colombia. “No, I can’t confirm that,” Martin Reslow said. “We have got very little information from the (Swedish) Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the police so far. Not even the identification job is done as far as we know. (Magnus dental records were sent to Colombia more than two weeks ago.)”
In his March 12 YouTube video, Bramsbusch also reported that Reslow’s body—recovered more than two weeks ago—would also be easily identifiable because of a steel plate that was implanted in his lower right arm after an injury.
Sailing on a shoestring, Marcus Renslow used this school Atlas to fill in the gaps in his nautical charts. In fact, no one much doubts that the body in a Colombian morge belongs to Reslow, and it would not ordinary take a conspiracy to explain his death.
Reslow, 64, set out from Santa Marta bound for Panama still hurting from beatings suffered at the hands of pirates. His boat Dhokus was a clapped out Laurin 32 without a working engine. He was relying on a handheld GPS, applying the coordinates in some cases to an old school atlas for areas where he lacked nautical charts.
The Caribbean coast of Columbia is a blustery place. In fact, Renslow’s boat washed up on a beach not far from a kite-surfing resort town. According to Bramsbusch, Reslow had timed his departure as winds were forecast to be even stronger than usual. Wind, waves and current around there often conspire to turn the entire coast into a lee shore.
Bramsbusch is thorough in his coverage of the sequence of events:
In a previous career as a newspaper editor, Loose Cannon would counsel his young reporters with an old saying: “Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be explained by simple incompetence.”
Was Reslow’s death the result of foul play, or is this mystery just a byproduct of routine ineptitude in the Columbian justice system?