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A New York man died while on a solo trip to Colombia. It took his grieving mother 5 months to learn what happened
Omar Watson made a promise to his mother before he left New York City for Colombia in late February.
Moments before he climbed into a rideshare to the airport, they hugged in the kitchen of their Brooklyn home. She reminded him of her only request whenever he travels.
“I told him, ‘Omar, if nothing else, make sure every time you get into your Airbnb at night, you message me and say, ‘Mommy, I’m OK,’” Hyacinth Watson told CNN. He said he would.
Her 31-year-old son sent her a message after his first full day in Bogotá on February 24. And the second day. And the third day. He did not check in on his fourth night, so she called him instead.
It was the last time she heard his voice. In the early afternoon on February 29, less than two days after that phone call, Omar Watson was found dead in the bathroom of his Airbnb.
His American passport was on a wooden dresser near the apartment unit entrance, according to a report from police investigators in Bogotá. But his phone, iPad and wallet had vanished, his mother said.
And so began Hyacinth Watson’s five-month ordeal to unravel the mystery on how her only child died in an unfamiliar country more than 2,000 miles away. Without her son’s phone, which likely would have offered clues, the grieving mother was left to wonder: How did he spend his final days? Was he alone when he died inside the white stucco apartment building? And why did his red canvas suitcase, which arrived months later, contain petite feminine clothes — along with his items?
“There’s not a day that I don’t break down. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had taken a flight and gone to see him,” she told CNN in July, wiping her tears with trembling hands. “I don’t sleep very well at night. I barely eat. My entire life is different. And nobody is telling me how my child died.”
Two days of silence — and then a dreaded phone call
As an unmarried online stock trader and entrepreneur who lived with his parents in Brooklyn, Watson was not tied to a desk job. His iPad was his business portal, and he took it everywhere he went, his mother said.
He was an avid solo traveler, and had been to a handful of countries, including Japan, Brazil, Mexico and France. After his one-week stay in Colombia, he was planning to go to Portugal.
“He just wanted to see the world. Any country he could travel (to), he did,” his mother said. “I never ever imagined that his death would happen during his travel.”
Colombia is an increasingly popular travel destination for Americans and other international tourists. From January to June this year, more than a quarter of foreign visitors to Colombia were from the US, according to the nation’s tourism ministry. It listed Bogotá as having the largest percentage of non-resident foreign tourists.
But traveling to Colombia, which also has a history of racism against Black people, is not without risk.
Shortly before Watson’s visit, the US Embassy in Bogotá issued a warning about eight suspicious deaths of US citizens in Medellin between November 1 and December 31. Last year, the embassy warned that robbers were drugging tourists in the country with scopolamine, a drug nicknamed “devil’s breath.”
Hyacinth Watson had seen the embassy’s warning and worried that her son had been the victim of foul play.
She rehashed their last phone conversation over and over for any hints of health problems. He’d told her he’d vomited and had diarrhea for a few days but was feeling better after getting medication from a local pharmacy. She recalls asking him why his breathing sounded a little slower than usual, but he insisted he was fine, she said.
Three months after the funeral, in late July, FedEx delivered Watson’s suitcase to Brooklyn, setting off a new wave of emotions.
Inside the suitcase were his clothes, along with dresses, blouses, pink sandals and silver hoop earrings. His mother said the clothes appeared new and while her son was social and made friends during his solo travels, he did not mention meeting anyone in Colombia.
“I don’t know of a girlfriend … the suitcase made me more confused,” she said.
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