- Edmond Bradley Solomon III, 66, was recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia before his Caribbean cruise
- He disappeared Wednesday after he and his wife left the Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked in Cozumel, Mexico
- He was last spotted by a local taxi driver who said he drove the missing man to a beach access road
A South Carolina family is desperate for answers after their 66-year-old father, recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, wandered off with his wife during a Royal Caribbean cruise.
Edmond Bradley Solomon III, who suffers from the degenerative condition, was last seen on Wednesday when the cruise he was taking with his wife Mimi made a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.
The pair went to the terminal’s toilet after the ship, the Icon of the Seas, docked, but Solomon has not been seen or heard from by his family since.
“When my stepmother, Mimi, came out, he wasn’t there,” Solomon’s daughter Savannah Miller said WCBD in an emotional interview.
‘She thought he might still be in the bathroom, so she waited for him for a few minutes. He didn’t come out.’
Edmond Bradley Solomon III, 66, was recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia before his Caribbean cruise
He disappeared Wednesday after he and his wife left the Royal Caribbean cruise ship docked in Cozumel, Mexico
Despite a family member checking in on him, he was nowhere to be found in the bathroom. At that moment, Miller says, his family knew her father was “lost.”
The only reported sighting of him came from a taxi driver who said he was hailed by the missing American on the Isla de la Pasión road.
Municipal authorities say a taxi driver, responding to an alert about Solomon, said he was flagged down by the lost American around 2:30 p.m., drove him to a beach access road and was paid by Solomon with a wristwatch because he said according to him he had no money Mexico News Daily.
Before he disappeared, Solomon was wearing a white T-shirt, gray shorts and dark sunglasses.
Miller told WCBD that his disorder — which is behavioral and does not affect his memory — causes him to say “strange things” and behave “erratically — or strangely — because he’s just doing what he can do.”
“He can’t process the same way you and I can,” Miller added of her father, a former critical care nurse at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston.
Solomon and his wife went to the terminal’s restroom after the ship docked, but his family has not been seen or heard from since, including daughter Savannah who helped raise the alarm.
a GoFundMe page has also been set up to assist in the search after the family contacted the U.S. Embassy and Consulate of Mexico City.
The fundraiser has already raised more than $15,000 toward its $5,000 goal as of Saturday evening.
‘The local army is actively searching. Mimi is in a hotel in Mexico. There are many uncertainties right now and we want to help alleviate the financial burden ahead,” organizer Marissa Aldridge wrote.
A tearful Miller, who argued that the “best thing anyone can do is just spread the word,” said she would go to Cozumel to join the search with Mimi, who has remained in the area.
“I’m really looking forward to having Mimi by my side and being able to give my dad a hug again,” Miller said.