“It’s hard to determine what actually happened when we’re hearing lots of conflicting information,” Ng’s brother, Jonathan, tells Inside Edition.
Over a month after California woman Nancy Ng disappeared while kayaking in Guatemala, there are still no answers as to what happened. Local officials ruled Ng had drowned, but her family still has a lot of questions. Inside Edition went to the lake where Ng disappeared.
Ng disappeared on a kayaking excursion on Lake Atitlán, said to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.
Elaine Beal owns the company that rented the kayak to Ng and her nine companions who were there that day. Beal showed Inside Edition on a map where she says Ng and Christina Blazek, the last person to see her alive, were kayaking that day.
“The accident occurred in the waters on the eastern shores,” Beal says.
Beal thinks Ng’s death was a tragic accident.
“They pushed off at about 10:45 which was still calm,” Beal says. “But an hour later the waves had started coming in and at that point, it’s better to stay close to the shore than experiment and go off.”
According to Blazek, Ng jumped out of the kayak to go for a swim. She says she paddled over to Ng’s kayak to hold onto it to keep it from drifting off, but when she looked back to find Ng, she was gone.
“We’re still hoping that more information will come in and we can find Nancy and bring her home,” Ng’s sister, Nicky, tells Inside Edition.
Ng stayed at a hotel right next to the kayak rental company. One question for the family remains: why wasn’t Ng wearing a life jacket?
The lawyer for Blazek says the kayakers were not offered life jackets, but Beal says that is not true.
“We give people the opportunity to take a life jacket and for this group, they all said no to taking life jackets,” Beal says.
Ng’s sister says it is her understanding that her sister was never given the option of a life jacket.
“I have gone kayaking with Nancy before,” Nicky says. “We went kayaking in New York, we were offered life vests and we both wore them... if they offered it she would have taken it.”
A volunteer search and rescue team has canvased the lake and shoreline by land, air, and water. So far there has been no sign of Ng’s body.
“It’s hard to determine what actually happened when we’re hearing lots of conflicting information,” Ng’s brother, Jonathan, says.
The local police in Guatemala would not comment on the status of the investigation.
Blazek, a public defender from California, insists she did everything she could to help and has fully cooperated with authorities, including the FBI.
“We understand how this could be very hard and traumatizing to witness but we do have incomplete information and we do need your help to find our sister,” Nicky says. “Just looking through her photos from this trip we can tell that she was really happy and really having a good time and that brings me some comfort.”
Ng’s family still has hope her body can be retrieved. At 1,100 feet, Lake Atitlán is the deepest lake in Central America.
