A U.S. Navy sailor left with his two kids from a Hawaii home in 2002. They haven't been seen since.
A Navy sailor and his two kids left their home in Hawaii nearly 20 years ago and haven’t been seen since.
Thought family and investigators still hope to this day to solve what happened.
Victorio Santiago and his sons, Daniel and Noel, went missing on July 12, 2002, according to NCIS and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Victorio was an active-duty member of the U.S. Navy and the family lived in Hawaii.
The family was seen leaving their Honolulu, Hawaii, home. Investigators say they may be in the area or may have traveled to the Philippines.
Victorio was estranged from his wife at the time he went missing, according to KHON. He was living at a Pearl Harbor barracks while his kids were living with his wife at a different location.
“According to the person who told me what had happened, my brother had some flowers to try to convince the wife to patch things up and resolve this thing so they can get together as a family,” Gilbert Santiago, Victorio's brother, told KHON in 2017. “And they got into an argument, and according to the cops he beat her and fled with the two kids. And that’s it, no more. But the question is, where’s the rental car until now?”
Honolulu police and Navy investigators searched for the family but so far have come up empty. Police told HawaiiNewsNow that Victorio wrote several disturbing letters before their disappearance and apologized for what he would do.
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Five years after the disappearance, Gilbert Santiago told HawaiiNewsNow that the family wasn’t giving up. He said he hoped one day the boys — who were 11 and 7 years old when they went missing — would show up on his front door.
"Every time we have some family occasions, that's when we think about them, and even every day," Gilbert Santiago said in 2007.Ten years after that, Gilbert Santiago said not knowing what happened remained difficult.
Ten years after that, Gilbert Santiago said not knowing what happened remained difficult.
“It’s always hard because we don’t know. There’s no closure on this situation. It can be sad if I know they’re gone completely, but at least I know there’s some closure already. But now that we’re in limbo we don’t know,” Gilbert Santiago told KHON.
Anyone with information on the family’s disappearance is asked to contact law enforcement.
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