In Oct. 2023, Nancy Ng from California disappeared while kayaking at a yoga retreat in Guatemala. Initially, the search for Ng was unsuccessful, as the last person to see Ng alive had returned to the U.S. Now that person has spoken to the press.
Ng was kayaking on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala when she and another unnamed woman reportedly broke away from the group. When that person returned to the others, she told them Ng was gone, but Ng was only later reported missing. Once alerted Ng had disappeared, her family rushed to the scene as official and private search parties scoured the area. For weeks, the search for the 29-year-old teacher turned up empty.
Several circumstances related to Ng’s disappearance raised suspicion that Ng met with foul play rather than drowned, including the fact that the last person to see her alive, as well as others who were there when Ng went missing, reportedly returned home without speaking to the authorities, according to Ng’s family.
About a month after Ng went missing, the last woman to see her alive came forward to give her version of the story, speaking through her attorney, according to The Independent. Her name is Christina Blazek, and she’s a public defender who, like Ng, traveled to the yoga retreat from California.
Ng drowned, Blazek said
Speaking through her attorney, G. Christopher Gardner, Christina Blazek, the last person to see Nancy Ng before she vanished, said that reports Blazek failed to cooperate with the authorities were not true, and that reports that Blazek and Ng intentionally split apart from the others were inaccurate. According to Gardner, Blazek said she encountered Ng on the water by happenstance, and they spoke to one another for a while before Ng said she wanted to swim.
Once in the water, Blazek’s attorney said, Ng’s kayak drifted away, and Blazek tried to return it to her. Blazek’s first attempt failed, and she tried to assist Ng with her kayak again. By that point, however, Ng was nowhere to be found. Blazek also said she cooperated with the authorities after Ng disappeared. According to Blazek, however, she was told that people were known to drown in the lake, and that nothing more could be done.
In response to Blazek’s attorney’s statement, Nicky Ng, Nancy’s sister, said (via ABC7), “If it is like she says and it is an accident, I don’t understand how she could choose to leave my family in the dark for almost four weeks, and not just say that from the start.” The Ng family also denied they threatened Blazek in an email. According to Blazek’s attorney, his client needed time before she was prepared to speak publicly.
