The last person known to have seen Nancy Ng, a California woman who went missing last month on a yoga retreat in Guatemala, has publicly denied claims that she’s hindering search efforts.
Nancy Ng disappeared on Oct. 19 while kayaking on Lake Atitlán in southwestern Guatemala. Ng’s family said last week that one of the last two people to see her before her disappearance was not responding to the family’s efforts to get in touch, per ABC 7, an ABC affiliate in Los Angeles.
In a statement to ABC 7, the Ng search team coordinator urged witnesses to “present themselves to their local Law Enforcement Department at the earliest opportunity.”
One of the last people to see Ng alive has since been identified as Christina Blazek. Blazek’s attorney told ABC 7 this week that she has spoken with the Guatemalan police.
“To say my client hasn’t done all she can is not true,” attorney G. Christopher Gardner told ABC 7.
What happened to Nancy Ng?
Ng, a 29-year-old from Monterey Park, California, worked with special needs children at a local school district, according to ABC 7. She was in Guatemala for her second trip with a U.S.-based yoga group and was kayaking in Lake Atitlán when she was last seen, per ABC 7.
Blazek’s attorney said Blazek chatted with Ng while they were both kayaking, and Ng told her she was going to go for a swim. Blazek’s lawyer told ABC 7 that Blazek warned Ng against it because of the current, but Ng still got out of her kayak, which began to float away.
Blazek told her attorney that she retrieved the kayak, and when she turned around, she saw no sign of Ng. No one has seen her since.
“She was told she needed to talk to the police, and she went and gave a full statement to Guatemalan police,” Gardner told ABC 7. “They told her there was nothing that could be done. Apparently that lake is known for having people drown on it.”
What has Nancy Ng’s family said about her disappearance?
The information shared by Blazek’s attorney with ABC 7 was new information for the Ng family, who’ve said that Blazek’s statement wasn’t included in the version of the police report they’ve seen.
“I hope she can understand that we have no account of what happened because she is the only person that saw what happened, and it wasn’t included in the report,” the Ng family told ABC 7.
The Ng family also said that Blazek refused their multiple efforts to speak with her directly. Blazek’s attorney told ABC 7 that Blazek “was traumatized by the experience and needed time.”
ABC 7 previously reported that the tour group Ng was traveling with did not report her disappearance to local authorities until the next day.
Another ABC 7 article noted that the owners of Kayak Guatemala, the company that rented kayaks to the group on the day Ng went missing, have also raised concerns about the group’s behavior.
The owners, Lee and Elaine Beal, said that the group’s members did not speak with them after Ng’s disappearance on the lake and didn’t pay for their rentals, according to the New York Post.
The search for Nancy Ng is ongoing, ABC 7 reports. Ng’s family has hired a private search team in hopes of bringing Ng home.