Elizabeth Waddell’s family said on Friday, July 31, that it was leaving Grenada and heading home, even as the search for the 44-year-old North Carolina woman continued. In a post on FindLiz.com, Cailen Waddell said the family had done what it could on the ground and that the investigation would go on.
The move gives the Liz Waddell Search a new turn today because it marks the family’s first clear break from the island while the case remains active. Waddell wrote that the family would travel home on Friday after consulting with family, local authorities, the U.S. Embassy, and others in Grenada. He also said he did not believe foul play was involved in his wife’s disappearance.
Police, though, have not gone that far. Royal Grenada Police Force Commissioner Randy Connaught said on July 28 that the matter was still being treated as a missing-person investigation and that the force had not reached or announced any final conclusion about what happened. That leaves the case in a narrow and uneasy place: the family has settled on one explanation, while investigators have not.
The timeline known so far ends where the gap begins. Elizabeth Waddell arrived in Grenada from Miami with a female friend between July 11 and July 20, then moved with her friend to an Airbnb in the southern part of the island on July 21. Surveillance footage showed her walking toward the jetty at 11:36 a.m. on July 22, removing her towel at 11:46 a.m., entering the water at 11:51 a.m. and swimming below the jetty at 12:04 p.m. Her friend later walked toward the jetty at 12:46 p.m. and returned alone. Waddell was never seen coming back from the water.
By 5:50 p.m. that day, her friend had reported her missing at the South St. George Police Station. The Royal Grenada Police Force issued a missing persons alert the next day. What happens after that is the central unanswered question: the search will continue, but without Waddell on the island, the work now depends on how investigators follow the evidence that is already in hand and what they are able to rule out next.
