Yesterday and today I kept seeing these headlines saying Olivia Newton John's ex is alive and well, or at least alive. The first article I clicked was probably the best one I read, and is the one I am linking to here. It is an Australian site and they did some good summarizing on the story although they went for the alive and on the run portion of the report as well. Everyone since this article has just kind of turned it up more and more until it almost sounds like Olivia's ex is in a bar down the street singing Physical and dancing around in a leotard.
Let's go back in time for a little bit and get everyone caught up. Olivia's ex boyfriend had some financial problems and was last seen on a boat down in Mexico. The Coast Guard thinks he drowned. Everyone else has never been so sure because upon his death, his debts went away and his son could get a $100,000 life insurance policy. He and Olivia were in the middle of a nine year relationship when this happened.
OK, so fast forward a few years and Dateline NBC decides to hire a private investigator to look into the disappearance. The investigators set up a website called findpatrickmcdermott.com and they figure that anyone who looks at the site must be a suspect or have some relationship to the case and that the investigators would track them down by looking at the IP address from the people who logged on.
The investigator, named Phillip Klein said that there have been a number of hits from coastal villages along the Mexican and South American coast. Uh huh. So, some guy is in a boat of the coast of Ecuador and fires up the satellite so he can look at the website about himself, and he does this everyday for months up and down the Pacific Ocean? What about the guy who was logged in from London? He isn't a possibility? Just because a guy vanished along the Mexican coast doesn't mean he is still there.
The only conclusive proof to anything that this guy offered was that "The most unusual hits we've gotten were Olivia Newton-John when she was on tour in Asia, every hotel she was registered at and staying at there were hits from that hotel on that night where she was staying." That is fair enough.
So, read the article and I guess watch the report from Dateline on television or YouTube or whatever, but I am not convinced. I'm not saying the guy is dead, I'm just saying that they seem to have put together some pieces that fit what they were looking for and made for good television rather than anything solid.
ita, enty.
ReplyDeletefurther, isn't sort of stupid on the part the detective to publicaly announce that he tracks all IPs and every hit to the site?
I don't know (or care) one way or the other, but the investigators have more than IPs. They went to Mexico and some folks in one town said they had seen the guy about a month prior to the investigators' visit. Could be those folks just wanted to be on TV, but there were about 4 people who said they had seen him.
ReplyDeletewell if my guy disappeared after 9 years i would think i'd be interested in checking out a website that's tracking his whereabouts.....d'uh !!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Pookie on announcing the tracking.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's unusual at ALL for Olivia Newton John to be checking the site.
Or are they implying that the hits came from the hotel, but not necessarily from HER.
Nope - still not weird. Someone (people like us, dare I say) see her and think, "Hey, WHAT was that story about her and a missing boyfriend? Let me just look that up..." Voila!
So four years later they set up a task force to find him? Huh? That doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteThink the investigator wants to drum up new clients by splashing his name all over Network TV.
ReplyDeleteOlivia Newton John sure remarried fast didn't she?
To get the scandal stench off of her? Doubt if they'll ever find McDermott because:
he's dead
he's farther far away thanks to Dateline.
I agree with Canadachick and AnnMarie. If my boyfriend of several years disappeared, I'd be checking out websites about him too. Just to see. You don't stay with someone for 9 years if you are completely uninterested in them and their well-being!
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wiki: Olivia married Matt Lattanzi in Dec. 1984, divorced in 1995, met McDermott in 1996 and he disappeard in 2005 (she was at a spa and was never a suspect as the Coast Guard determined he fell overboard). THREE years later she married John Easterling. I don't consider waiting 12 years to remarry "marrying fast".
ReplyDeleteSomeone with the US Marshal's Service, which a large part of is devoted to looking for fugitives, told me that the longer someone is on the run, the more mistakes they will make and that's how they're caught.
ReplyDeleteThe stories he told me, it's almost comical how some fugitives get caught, almost like they're asking to get caught.
Usually, they make some kind of mistake. The only way to catch them is for someone to keep looking for them to be in the right place at the right time.
All the indicators are there that McDermott is still alive out there.
I feel sorry for ONJ, because she's moved on with her life (even if she's checking the website) and they keep caling him her boyfriend. She's a real sweet person (people I know who know her tell me this; I've never met her) and I wonder how she got caught up with someone like him. Hope her husband is a lot better person.
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ReplyDeleteI'm sure ONJ's husband sleeps well at night knowing his bride is frequently checking for updates regarding her past boyfriend....
ReplyDeleteI did watch it the other night. It showed the neighborhood where he lived last and questioned his old neighbors. He lived in a regular middle class neighborhood.So they must not have lived together. It was surprising to me that she was with him for 9 years. I think he is alive and that someday when he thinks its safe he will let his guard down and will be found. Of course it might be 25 years from now.
ReplyDeletei feel bad for Olivia...she probably just wants some answers and closure. not knowing would be hard to deal with, not to mention feeling like a fool.
ReplyDeleteOlivia is only checking this site in case they find his ass - she can kick it for making her go through all that hell.
ReplyDeleteDateline said they had been broken up for a couple of months before he disappeared which is why Olivia never reported him missing.She didn't know he was missing. I don't know why they would go public with the website though. You would think it would be useless now.
ReplyDeleteI watched this Dateline and as usual it was big hype about nothing. ONJ and McDermott were not together when he disappeared and it's unfortunate that the press keeps referring to him as her bf. I think the investigator was just playing up to the camera and maybe hoping to get a Dog the Bounty Hunger deal out of it. When it was all said and done, they had nothing on the guy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with califblondy, I watched that Dateline show and the investigator struck me as someone who was playing to the camera and hoping Dateline would lead to something bigger. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone on his staff had gone around and paid a few people to claim they'd seen McDermott down there in Mexico, just to make him and his investigation look better. It seemed a little too convenient, ya know? Like they were striking out so they decided to stir things up a bit.
ReplyDeleteOops in an earlier post I wrote the remarriage was too fast.
ReplyDeleteNo it was more of how long her and McDermott were together Without Marrying(9years)compared to the relatively quick courtship with the Amazon health guy(18 months).Does sound like Amazon guy doesn't have all the money problems previous guy had. BINGO!