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May 3, 2002

Placencia amnesia victim identified

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A week after he was found on the beach in Placencia, a man claiming amnesia has been identified. News 5 understands that the man we interviewed on Tuesday is Gary Jenssen, a U.S. citizen with a last known address of Woodland Park, Colorado. Apparently Jenssen came to Belize in late February of this year and headed south to the Placencia Peninsula. But just a few days after Easter, Jenssen abandoned his belongings at a hotel in Placencia Village and headed up the beach toward Seine Bight with a pigtail bucket and machete in hand. Witnesses tell News 5 that prior to his departure he had been acting strangely, talking to himself or to people who weren’t there. No one reports seeing him again until he surfaced Friday night on the beach in front of Robert’s Grove claiming amnesia. Theories vary, but it is now suspected that Jenssen was not lost at sea, but having run out of money was surviving on a limited diet, which may explain why he was so dehydrated when medical authorities examined him. The details of his identity have been forwarded to the consular section of the United States Embassy and officials there tell us efforts are being made to contact his family. For now though, Jenssen remains in the care of doctors at the Southern Belize Medical Clinic in Independence.


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