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Authorities have found a body during the search for a missing American Airlines flight attendant who disappeared during a routine layover in Colombia.
Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez said that the grisly discovery was made in a rural area south of the Colombian city, days after Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina was reported missing.
“I have to deliver some sad news. Since last Sunday, we have been searching for Eric Gutiérrez, a US citizen who is missing. Unfortunately, a lifeless body has just been found between the municipality of Jericó and Puente Iglesias. There is a very high probability that it is this person,” Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez wrote on X.
The body, believed to be Molina’s, was transported to Medellín for identification and autopsy.
Gutiérrez said he delivered the “painful news” to Molina’s father, who had traveled to Colombia after his son was reported missing.
“We express our solidarity to his family and friends,” the mayor wrote.
Molina, 32, was a flight crew member based out of Dallas-Fort Worth and had arrived in Medellín from a flight that had departed Miami on March 21.
He was scheduled to work a return flight the next morning after a brief overnight stay, but never made it back to the Medellín airport.
Molina was last seen in Medellín’s La América neighborhood, an area not known for tourist activities, according to officials.
Molina’s close friend told Telemedellín that the flight attendant had allegedly been invited to go out and party — and was later found disoriented and taken to a medical center.
Molina was last heard from when he sent a message Sunday morning sharing his location at an Airbnb in the El Poblado neighborhood, about 12 miles from Medellín’s José María Córdova International Airport.
It wasn’t known if Molina was a victim of violence, but Gutiérrez teased “justice be done” for those responsible.
No suspects have been arrested in the discovery of the body and no cause of death has been revealed.
“The investigations carried out by the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office are very advanced and they would have very clear leads on those responsible,” he wrote.
On Thursday, Molina’s loved ones revealed they were losing hope as the search for the missing American progressed.
“I want to believe that he’s alive, and I want to continue believing that he’s alive, but throughout each day you wake up not knowing anything and it makes the days go by longer and slower,” Molina’s partner Ernesto Carranza told CBS News Thursday.
Officials are scheduled to hold a press conference Saturday afternoon with more details surrounding the grim discovery.
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