Thread: Cambodia : Remains of Errol Flynn's son found

Remains of Errol Flynn's son found
Mar 29, 2010

PHNOM PENH - FORENSIC tests will be conducted on what two searchers believe are the remains of photographer Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, who disappeared during the Cambodian War 40 years ago, the US Embassy said Monday.

At least 37 journalists were killed or are listed as missing from the 1970-75 war, which pitted the US-backed Lon Nol government against the North Vietnamese-supported Khmer Rouge. A number of journalists were known to have been captured by the Khmer Rouge and probably executed.

US Embassy spokesman John Johnson said that Australian David MacMillan and Briton Keith Rotheram handed over the remains Friday, and they were sent to the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, which deals with accounting for missing Americans from past wars. 'Obviously there is nothing conclusive and tests need to be conducted,' Johnson said. 'Each case is different so it is difficult to speculate on how long the analysis may take.'

The search for Sean Flynn and a close friend, Dana Stone, began not long after their disappearance in the province of Kampong Cham in 1970, notably by a colleague and Vietnam War-era photographer Tim Page. Freelance 'bone hunters' have also taken up the search for both missing journalists and US servicemen listed as missing in Indochina. Some proved to be swindlers who demanded money from grieving families of the missing.

'Over the years a number of us have tried to resolve the fate of our mates. Not only have fellow media been on this quest, but officials from the US, Japan and France,' Page wrote in an e-mail to friends last week. Page, who urged the duo to turn over the remains to US authorities, also expressed concern over how MacMillan and Rotheram allegedly conducted their search.

Phuong Thy, chief of Romeas Choul, told The Associated Press that about 10 Westerners came to the village in mid-January and hired some 50 local Cambodian workers to dig up an area of 50 square meters (538 square feet) where they believed a journalist had been buried. Local authorities were asked to cooperate with the search. The dig, conducted with spades and hoes, took place in a rice field near the Vietnamese border, he said.

straitstimes.com

The dig, conducted with spades and hoes, took place in a rice field near the Vietnamese border, he said.

that's strange. I read in the paper today that they used earth moving machines.

The article also said the reason why they thought it was Flyn is because the teeth they found were 'beautiful' and Flyn was known for his magnificent smile.

It all sounds like these guys are just after publicity, as the chances of the remains really being Flyn's have to be extremely small..

He was known for something else..!


Do they recon he was hung like his dad..?

Flynn’s bones found, maybe
James O'Toole
Monday, 29 March 2010

TWO men have uncovered what they say may be the remains of Vietnam War-era photographer Sean Flynn, the son of Hollywood actor Errol Flynn who went missing in Cambodia in 1970.

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper reported Saturday that the two men – 29-year-old Australian Dave MacMillan and 60-year-old Briton Keith Rotheram – had discovered the remains in Kampong Cham province’s Phka Dong village, based on a tip from a local villager who claimed to have witnessed in 1971 the execution of a foreign prisoner matching Flynn’s description. Previous witness statements, though never verified, have suggested that Flynn might have been killed by lethal injection in Kampong Cham’s Krauch Chhmar district in 1971.

Based on photos seen by the Post, the remains include clothes, teeth and bone fragments. MacMillan told the Daily Mail that an unnamed expert had concluded that the teeth suggested dental work performed in the US during the middle of the 20th century.

US embassy spokesman John Johnson said Sunday that MacMillan and Rotheram had given the alleged remains to US authorities, who planned to pass them on to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), a US military institution in Hawaii that forensically analyses evidence that may lead to the repatriation of Americans killed in overseas conflicts.

“On Friday night, they dropped off possible human remains, and we’ll send them along to JPAC and they’ll go back to the US for analysis,” Johnson said, adding that it was unclear if or when JPAC would be able to positively identify the deceased.

“It really depends on what sort of material they have to work with, so it’s really hard to speculate,” he said.

British photographer Tim Page, a close friend of Flynn’s when they covered the conflict in Vietnam together during the 1960s, has spent years searching for details about the fate of Flynn and other colleagues who disappeared in the region during that era. In an email last week, he expressed reservations about the way in which MacMillan and Rotheram conducted their search, adding that he had encouraged them to turn the remains over to the US embassy after their initial reluctance.

“It was not a forensic dig; they used an excavator and uncovered a full set of remains, which they removed from the site and have been taciturn about handing in,” Page said, adding that it was premature to tout the remains as Flynn’s when numerous other foreigners are thought to have been killed nearby.

“They are ignoring the strong possibility of them being the remains of another possible nine foreigners who are thought to be in the same area,” Page said.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, described the search for Flynn’s remains as a “personal and a family matter”.

MacMillan said in an email that he had received authorisation to conduct the search from Rory Flynn, Sean’s half-sister and next of kin. Local authorities and US embassy officials, Macmillan said, were “fully apprised of every stage of the operation”.

Rotheram declined to comment at length on the finding on Sunday, describing the event as “world news” and saying that he was “waiting for people to come in with exclusives”.

Journalists who covered Cambodia from 1970-1975 are scheduled to come together in Phnom Penh for a reunion next month, where a memorial stupa will be dedicated to the local and foreign journalists who died while covering the Kingdom’s 1970-1975 civil war. At least 37 journalists – from Japan, France, the United States, Sweden, Germany, India, Laos, Australia and Cambodia – were killed or disappeared during the conflict between the US-backed Lon Nol government and the Khmer Rouge, which captured Phnom Penh in April 1975.

In his statement, Page noted the “amazing” timing of the reported Kampong Cham discovery coming with the reunion so close at hand.

“I think you would agree that if this is the remains of one of our peers or brothers – in fact whoever it is, some dignity and correctness is required,” he wrote. “It will be good to be reunited in Phnom Penh and to raise a glass to them.”

phnompenhpost.com

Some background....



R E Q U I E M
SEAN FLYNN
Sean Flynn arrived at the UPI bureau in Saigon shortly after his friend Dana Stone.
He had "popped over" to Vietnam from Singapore where he was acting in a movie.
An adventurer, like his famous father, Errol Flynn, he wanted to see some action.
I got him accredited as a UPI photographer.
Once official, he wasted no time disappearing into the "boonies."

Sean was unlike most photographers.
Instead of doing quick operations in the field, Sean wanted to hang out with the Special Forces and the "LURPS " (Long Range Patrols)
in the thickest jungles and the highest, most remote mountain ranges.
He would disappear for weeks at a time, and when he returned, it was with only a few rolls of film.
But his photos were unlike anyone else's.
(Dirck Halstead)



R E Q U I E M
DANA STONE

Dana Stone showed up at the doorstep of the UPI bureau in Saigon in 1965 after buying a ticket to Vietnam on a freighter.
He quickly became one of the finest young photographers covering the war.

He and Sean Flynn, the son of movie star Errol Flynn, soon formed a close friendship and the war became a great adventure for both of them.
They often rode to scenes of action on their motorcycles.
In 1970, they were riding those bikes down a road in Cambodia when they were stopped and executed in a field by the Khmer Rouge.
(Dirck Halstead)


Sean Flynn & Dana Stone

The Mysterious End of Sean Flynn & Dana Stone
Wikipedia reports that information obtained from indigenous sources indicated that Stone and Flynn were executed in mid-1971 in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia.
Various sources, including an intercepted radio message from COSUN, the Viet Cong high command, indicated that Flynn and Stone survived.

One source reported that he had seen a group of very long haired, bearded, tall prisoners near Memot,
Cambodia who were identified as 'imperialist journalists'.

Over the following years, occasional reports emerged from isolated Cambodian villages of a "movie star" who was being held prisoner by the Khmer Rouge.
In reality, his mother Lili Damita spent large amounts of money searching for him, but he was never found.

Wikipedia also reports that in the 1980s, a vagrant claimed to have been recently in Mexico having been drinking buddies with a man who claimed to be the son of Errol Flynn.
This was never verified or substantiated. In 1984, Sean Flynn was declared legally dead, and one of 22 international journalists missing in Southeast Asia, most known to have been captured.

Evidence concerning Sean Flynn's fate was uncovered in 1991 by his former photojournalist colleague Tim Page.
According to a report published in the UK Sunday Times on March 24th 1991, Page returned to Cambodia in November 1990, determined to resolve the mystery.

"He began his search at Sangke Kaong, the first village where Flynn and Stone were known to have been held captive for several months according to documents released by the CIA.
Page tracked down one former villager who identified Flynn from a contemporary photograph, and recalled that the American had told her that both his parents were movie actors."

According to the report, "Flynn and Stone were moved north in early 1971 by their captors to Rokar Knor and then Peus, following the advance of US forces into Cambodia.
Following a hunger strike, they were moved again, and eventually handed over to the Khmer Rouge."

Investigations by Page and a TV documentary producer led them to a village known as Bei Met, and to an empty grave that had allegedly been the final resting place of two foreigners.
Forensic examination of the few remains left in the grave suggested they belonged to a tall man and a short man, and that both had met a violent end.

Even more recent information has been provided by author Jeffrey Meyers in his 2002 dual biography, "Inherited Risk: Errol and Sean Flynn in Hollywood and Viet Nam".

His research now provides a different ending to the mystery of "Whatever Happened to Sean Flynn?" Meyer says his research shows that in June of 1971,
being a captive for over a year, Flynn had contracted a "severe case of malaria".

He says that because of the poor medical facilities in Cambodia, the medical treatment given to him by his captors "went horribly wrong".
When nothing else could be done for him; he was given a lethal injection.

It is alleged that he may also have been buried alive, before the effects of the injection took its final toll.
His remains were then buried in an unknown spot never to be found again.

British war photographer Page condemns "Sean Flynn" exhumation
Mar 31, 2010

Phnom Penh - Renowned British war photographer Tim Page on Wednesday condemned the manner in which a British-Australian team dug up bones it claimed are of missing photographer Sean Flynn, who disappeared in Cambodia 40 years ago.

Page, who has spent years searching for Flynn's remains himself, told the German Press Agency dpa that without DNA testing, there could be no certainty that the remains uncovered in central Cambodia were those of his former colleague, friend and the son of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn - something the team that excavated them has claimed.

'And you don't take a bulldozer to a crime scene investigation,' Page said of numerous media reports that the team had used a backhoe to turn up the remains.

'There is a very strict procedure to be followed when digging at the site of possible remains, and in this case, that procedure has not been followed,' said Page, who is best known for his photographs from the Vietnam War.

Flynn was in Cambodia on assignment for Time magazine covering its civil war when he and fellow American Dana Stone, a photojournalist with CBS News, went missing on April 6, 1970, after they drove out of Phnom Penh on the road to Vietnam.

Flynn was 28 and Stone was 31 when they disappeared, and neither man was heard from again. It is thought the two were kept alive for a year before being killed, either by the Khmer Rouge or by Vietnamese communist forces.

Page said he believed he had found the site last year where Flynn and up to 11 other missing journalists might have been executed in the early 1970s.

'It looks like all the journalists captured in eastern Cambodia were taken to the same area, so we could be looking at one of 12,' he said. 'But I haven't released anything because I haven't confirmed it. Until it's proven, it could even be [a Cambodian national].'

Dave McMillan, one of the men behind the dig, said he would 'not confirm or deny' reports they had used earth-moving equipment during the dig but said the expedition had been sanctioned by Flynn's half-sister.

'We've done a whole different bunch of things - I've been up there three months digging holes,' he said. 'We used some not-so-obvious techniques you wouldn't see in a forensics handbook.'

On Friday, the team handed over the remains to the US embassy in Phnom Penh. An embassy spokesman said the remains would be forwarded to the United States for analysis but said it was unclear how long it would take to confirm or refute the identity.

Flynn and Stone were among at least 37 journalists who died or disappeared while covering the Cambodia conflict, which ended on April 17, 1975, when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces took Phnom Penh and instituted their four-year-long genocidal regime known as Democratic Kampuchea.

The Cambodian government announced in March that it would build a monument to the memory of those journalists. A group of surviving journalists from that era have planned a reunion in Phnom Penh in April, the first since they were expelled by the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

Around 2 million Cambodians are thought to have died during the Khmer Rouge rule of the country. A UN-Cambodian court in Phnom Penh has been established to try some of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders

monstersandcritics.com

Originally Posted by ItsRobsLife

was this jam written about him ?

I'm a big Clash fan .

Human remains unlikely to be missing US war photographer Sean Flynn
Apr 26, 2010

Phnom Penh - Human remains unearthed under controversial circumstances in Cambodia last month are not thought to be those of Sean Flynn, the son of Hollywood icon Errol Flynn and a US war photographer who disappeared in Cambodia 40 years ago, the US embassy in Phnom Penh said Monday.

Spokesman John Johnson said an analysis undertaken by the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, whose task is to determine the fate of US military personnel who are listed as prisoners of war or missing in action, suggested the remains 'may be indigenous.'

'Further testing is under way,' Johnson said, adding that the remains 'are badly fragmented due to the manner in which they were recovered.'

The remains were dug up by Australian Dave MacMillan, 29, and Briton Keith Rotheram, 60, in the south-eastern Cambodian province of Kampong Cham and eventually handed over in late March to the US embassy.

The pair made world news after claiming they had found Flynn's remains. They admitted to using heavy earthmoving equipment to conduct part of the dig, a technique that was widely criticized because it damaged the site that the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command subsequently investigated.

MacMillan told dpa in March that the team had 'used some not-so-obvious techniques you wouldn't see in a forensics handbook' during its three-month dig.

Neither MacMillan nor Rotheram could be reached for comment Monday.

Flynn was in Cambodia on assignment for Time magazine covering its civil war when he and fellow American Dana Stone, a photojournalist with CBS News, went missing on April 6, 1970, after they drove out of Phnom Penh on the main road to Vietnam.

Flynn was 28 and Stone was 31 when they disappeared, and neither was heard from again. It is thought they were kept alive for a year before being killed, either by the Khmer Rouge or by Vietnamese communist forces.

The announcement by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command followed the conclusion last week of the first Phnom Penh reunion of journalists and photographers who covered the war in Cambodia in the early 1970s.

Flynn and Stone were among at least 37 foreign and local journalists who died or disappeared while covering the Cambodia conflict, which ended on April 17, 1975, when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces took Phnom Penh and instituted their four-year-long genocidal regime known as Democratic Kampuchea.

Around 2 million Cambodians are thought to have died under the Khmer Rouge. A UN-Cambodian court in Phnom Penh has been established to try the movement's surviving leaders.

monstersandcritics.com

Sean Flynn not buried in Cambodia war grave
30 Jun 2010

DNA tests have shown that uman remains found at a grave in Cambodia are not those of Sean Flynn, the son of the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn.


The 28-year-old's fate has been a mystery since 1970 when he was captured by communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas
Photo: CORBIS

In March two amateur archaeologists presented a jaw and a femur bone to US officials, unearthed at a site in eastern Kampong Cham province, saying they believed the parts belonged to the war photographer.

The remains from the site, which some researchers believe is a mass grave for up to a dozen foreign journalists killed by Khmer Rouge fighters during Cambodia's war in the early 1970s, were sent for forensic analysis in Hawaii.

Officials from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the site in April and found more human remains.

Lt Col Wayne Perry, JPAC spokesman, said that tests showed the remains were not those of Flynn, who disappeared 40 years ago while covering Cambodia's war.

Lt Col Perry said there was no match between DNA from the recovered remains and DNA samples they had on file from the Flynn family.
"The remains do not match any known Westerner for whom JPAC has a reference sample," he added.

Flynn, who worked as actor before covering the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia as a photographer, bore a striking resemblance to his father, who starred in swashbuckling roles in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood.

The 28-year-old's fate has been a mystery since 1970 when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone were captured by communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas while on assignment in the area, and never heard from again.

Keith Rotheram, a Briton in the team that found the remains, said in March that they based their search on a local villager's claims to have seen regime soldiers kill a prisoner there matching Flynn's description in 1971.

At least 37 journalists were killed or disappeared covering the brutal 1970-75 conflict between the US-backed Lon Nol government and Khmer Rouge guerrillas supported by North Vietnamese fighters.

telegraph.co.uk

Nice follow-up coverage, Mid!

Progress near on missing Vietnam War journalists
Wed Jun 22 2011

Vietnam: Military investigators could be a step nearer solving the mystery of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn's journalist son, who disappeared in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The fate of war photographer Sean Flynn and his colleague Dana Stone has been unclear since they went missing in southeast Cambodia while covering the conflict in 1970.

A US official said Wednesday that investigators hoped talks with former North Vietnamese soldiers would lead to progress on the fate of two American journalists captured in the area, though he declined to name those involved.

"We're starting to get some witnesses that are talking about the capture of these journalists down there", Ron Ward, of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), told AFP.

"We're hopeful to have a breakthrough on that case."

In 1970 US-backed South Vietnamese forces crossed into Cambodia to attack North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong bases in the neighbouring country, where the communist Khmer Rouge were also operating.

Ward said it has always been unclear who exactly captured the journalists but JPAC investigators, working with counterparts in Vietnam, spoke over the past month with former North Vietnamese soldiers whose information may clarify what happened.

The case has been investigated many times over the years without progress, but a break seems closer now, Ward said.

"We're sifting through that information," he said, adding that more witnesses will need to be interviewed over the coming months.

But he said the witnesses have not spoken about remains.

Last year a JPAC lab in Hawaii concluded that remains handed over by two amateur Western diggers from Cambodia's eastern Kampong Cham province were not those of Flynn.

At least 37 journalists were killed or disappeared covering the 1970-75 conflict between the US-backed Lon Nol government and Khmer Rouge guerrillas supported by North Vietnamese fighters.

timesofoman.com

Very interesting.