'Dead on Vacation': Nancy Grace investigates case that parallels Natalee Holloway disappearance
'Sun. Fun. And Murder?'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In 2011, the case of Robyn Gardner gained notoriety due to its uncanny parallels to the unsolved disappearance of Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old Alabama woman whose disappearance in Aruba just six years earlier gripped the nation and dominated the nightly news.
Gardner, who had been vacationing at the very same island as Holloway, vanished at 35-years-old on August 2 of that year.
The Natalee Holloway Resource Center had reportedly opened a tip line for the Gardner case — but while there were leads and even a detained suspect, Gardner's remains were never found, and the case continues to get colder.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now, crime expert and Fox Nation host Nancy Grace is getting to the bottom of it in a new episode of ‘Crime Stories: Dead on Vacation,’ a 5-part series releasing this week on the streaming service.
'THE FUHRMAN DIARIES' UNVEILS EXCLUSIVE NEW DETAILS ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY
Grace joined ‘Fox & Friends’ Monday to detail another case featured in her series, the cautionary tale of Abbey Conner.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Grace told Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that Conner, just 20-years-old, had been found dead after drinking ‘bootleg alcohol’ at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico on a family vacation.
In January 2017, Bill Conner and Virginia McGowan made plans to take a family vacation with their kids, Abbey and Austin, in Mexico - choosing the Iberostar Paraiso Del Mar resort in the popular hotspot Playa del Carmen.
Hours after arriving at the hotel, Abbey and Austin, who had been served a drink by the pool, were drowning.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Abbey was found face-down in the pool, and her brother was in the shallow end. Abbey died and her brother survived.
Grace, who mentioned meeting and befriending Bill Conner on the set of FOX' ‘Dr. Oz Show,' said she'd quickly learned his daughter's untimely death was no coincidence.
"I learned about a big threat to American travelers that very few people know about: tainted alcohol," Grace told Earhardt. "People make a profit of [sic] refilling brand alcohol with methanol, or rubbing alcohol, and people end up dying."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"There have been hundreds of Americans who've suffered in Mexico alone because of this," Grace noted, adding that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had subsequently published an expose on the matter.
Released in June of 2018, the piece revealed the publication had learned that, in the previous year alone, more than 170 travelers had described injuries, illnesses and deaths after consuming alcohol at resorts and in tourist towns within Mexico.
"This is happening … It's nothing to ignore," Grace warned.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Other featured cases in the series include Marie Kuhnla, a public defender who had been strangled to death outside a resort in Turks & Caicos; Merrian Carver, a woman who disappeared on a cruise trip before the boat could make it back to shore; and Desiree Gibbon, a young New York City-based model who was brutally murdered in Jamaica.
Watch them all this week on ‘Crime Stories: Dead on Vacation,’ exclusively available to stream on Fox Nation.
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