Robert Vendrick disappearance higly suspicious

[ells9824]

The two business partners boarded the 23-foot sailboat in Dana Point on Saturday evening, authorities said, supposedly heading to San Clemente Island to seal a lucrative deal with a mysterious government agency.

When the beat-up boat returned to shore in Long Beach on Tuesday, only one of the partners was on board.

continue story (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-missing22feb22,1,5439527.story?ctrack=1&cset=true)

[Dakota Valkyrie]

http://i43.tinypic.com/mbmqt2.jpghttp://i42.tinypic.com/28ireow.jpg
Gary Shawkey and Robert Vendrick

Orange County prosecutors filed murder charges today against Gary Shawkey — a self-help author and investment businessman — in the death of an elderly Phoenix investor.

Shawkey, 46, of Mechanicsville, VA, is charged with one count of murder with a sentencing enhancement of intentional murder carried out for financial gain, prosecutors said today.

Prosecutors allege Shawkey convinced the 71-year-old victim, Robert Vendrick, to invest in a venture involving the development of software for the federal government. Vendrick wired $100,000 to a bank account for Shawkey, then flew to Orange County, believing he was to meet with federal agents about the project.

When Vendrick arrived in Orange County, Shawkey bought a boat and sailed the victim out of the Dana Point Harbor — and Vendrick went missing. Prosecutors think Shawkey killed Vendrick and disposed of his body.

Shawkey is being held in Virginia on an unrelated theft case. Prosecutors want to extradite him here.http://crime.freedomblogging.com/2009/02/13/self-help-guru-charged-with-arizona-mans-murder/2630/

Weirdness from May:

A motivational speaker named as the only person of interest in the disappearance of his business partner after a boat trip in February is back in Orange County with a wild tale of his adventures in Mexico of finding his missing friend, only to lose him on a bus in Tijuana.

The disappearance of Robert Vendrick, a 71-year-old diabetic from Phoenix, was strange from the start. But the story appears to becoming stranger by the day as his investment partner – and the central figure in his vanishing – crisscrosses the United States on Greyhound buses looking for him. All the while, Gary Shawkey, a 44-year-old self-help author and investment guru, keeps Orange County Sheriff's investigators apprised of the near-misses with his friend, Bob.

Bob, he claims, is alive and well. And Shawkey says he wants to help find him.
[...]
Three months later Shawkey appeared to have vanished in an eerily similar way to his business partner.
[...]
After being handed over to U.S. officials, Shawkey called Orange County investigators to tell them he had found Vendrick in Mexico and was bringing him to the Border Patrol when Vendrick jumped off the bus in Tijuana. He was headed to Mazatlan, Shawkey told investigators.
[...]
Shawkey's latest bus trip is not the first time the motivational speaker and self-help author has gone to look for his missing business partner. While investigators were still combing the area for clues, Shawkey left California in early March to attend a bikers' week in Florida, “to look for the missing man,” authorities said. Shawkey was in Daytona Beach, but there was no sign of Vendrick.

Last week, he was in Brownsville, Texas, looking for Vendrick.http://www.ocregister.com/articles/shawkey-vendrick-investigators-2042244-feb-amormino

Can you say "Cuckoo for CoCo Puffs"?