Van belonging to Western Australian travellers Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman was found burnt out in Sinaloa on Mexico’s Pacific coast, according to reports

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Friends of two Australians missing for more than a week in Mexico will travel to Sinaloa following a report that the men’s van has been found, one of the friends said Sunday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) issued a statement confirming that the pair’s vehicle had been found, but did not confirm reports that two bodies had been found inside the burnt out van.

The families and partners are aware the van in which they were travelling has been located by Mexican authorities and that a tragic event has occurred. The families hold deep fears for the safety of their sons but stress that they are still waiting for details to be confirmed. Members of Dean and Adam’s families will be travelling to Mexico in the coming days and working with Australian consular officials and Mexican authorities. We ask for privacy during this enormously difficult time.

Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman were travelling from Edmonton, Canada, to Mexico and were scheduled to arrive on 21 November in the city of Guadalajara, but failed to appear. The surfers were driving through Sinaloa when they went missing.

Coleman’s girlfriend, Andrea Gómez, said that she and Lucas’s partner, Josie Cox, would travel to the Sinaloan capital of Culiacan on Monday to see if two bodies reportedly found inside the burned van were the Australians.

“Everything points to it being them because the van matches, it had a bicycle,” said Gómez. “But nothing is confirmed yet. Josie is arriving from Canada today and early Monday we are going to leave for Culiacan to see the bodies and do DNA tests.”

She said that Cox was bringing Lucas’s dental records for matching and she had “pieces of dreadlocks” that Coleman had given her.

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The Australians had been scheduled to meet Gómez in Guadalajara just over a week ago but never arrived. She said they put out an alert on social media after reporting the men missing. She said she was contacted by someone who said the men had been seen on the night of 20 November in a 24-hour convenience store in the town of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, looking for a map.

The pair, both aged 33, left Edmonton with another friend who they dropped off in Las Vegas before continuing south along Mexico’s Pacific coast, picking up odd jobs along the way to fund their trip, according to Gómez. “I had talked to them about the insecurity [in Mexico] but I never told them about the terrible things that could happen. For that I feel a bit responsible,” she said.

Coleman had been planning to stay in Mexico with Gómez, whereas Lucas and Cox were due to travel on to the UK.

Coleman’s mother, Zena Cattermole, later wrote on her Facebook page: “Our son’s life has left us, but they will be with us forever in our hearts ...”

Cox told the ABC the van was similar to the blue and white Chevrolet the pair were driving and, while nothing was confirmed, she feared the worst.



“They’re such good guys and such good people,” she told Canada Global News.

“Even when they have a laugh and a joke, they still make it quite obvious that we’re going to speak to them again soon. So no, I definitely don’t doubt that there’s something that’s happened, something that we should be worried about.”

Sinaloa, home of the powerful cartel led by fugitive drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, stretches down Mexico’s Pacific coast and would be on the route of most road trips to Guadalajara from Vancouver, where the men had apparently acquired the van.

“They were hurrying to get here, that’s why they were travelling at night,” Gómez said. The person who told her about the sighting in Los Mochis also told her about the burned van being found.

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She said they continue to receive messages from people who say they saw them “but we don’t know what is true and what is not.”

The Dfat statement said consular officials were working with Mexican authorities to locate the two men.

Authorities in Sinaloa have not provided information on the case.