ENFIELD–A former Connecticut National Guard member went missing in Thailand on Saturday during a scuba-diving trip. Thursday night, his mother and sister departed from JFK airport to try to find him.
The expect to arrive Saturday. They said they will meet with Josh's wife and his friends in addition to officials at the U.S Embassy. They are also hoping to meet with the FBI. They expect to are hire a private investigator and attorney in Thailand.
Joshua Devine, a decorated soldier who served two tours and later became a military IT contractor, is a certified scuba diver who was on a trip off the coast of Phuket, Thailand with his wife last weekend when he went overboard. The captain of the boat didn’t stop, and his disappearance wasn’t reported until hours later.
Before boarding their flight, Devine’s sister, Jennifer Bakowski, told Fox CT that she was taking the trip with her mother because “when you want something done right, I guess you have to just do it yourself.”
Bakowski says stories about her brother’s disappearance aren’t adding up. She says witnesses tell the family that Devine was drunk and somehow vanished from the tour boat. Despite this, the boat never stopped and Devine’s disappearance went unreported for hours. “I really just want to get one coherent story. You know? Just one that we can understand because there are just too many missing pieces,” says Bakowski.
Published reports indicate the search for Devine was called off. Therefore, Bakowski is hoping her family can talk one-on-one with the people involved in his disappearance to find out why more isn’t being done to find him.
Bakowski tells Fox CT she has a feeling someone drugged her brother. “ I don't know why they would've done that. I think that's what happened and he maybe figured out that he was drugged and said something and a confrontation happened,” said Bakowski.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise funds for Bakowski and her mother to travel to Thailand. Bakowski says that money will instead be used to hire a private investigator overseas.
Bakowski says her family is remaining hopeful that this trip will provide the answers they’re desperately seeking. If not, she says they plan to remain in Thailand until April 25.
