Curacao cops: Witnesses saw missing US diplomat

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Investigators searching for a missing U.S. diplomat in Curacao said Saturday that several people have reported seeing him around the time he vanished.

Tips considered credible began trickling in after police on the Dutch Caribbean island posted fliers with numbers that people could call anonymously, according to police spokesman Reggie Huggins.

“We have talked to quite a lot of people that one way or another have helped,” he said, declining to release further details.

U.S. Vice Consul James Hogan, 49, has been missing since he left home last week for one of his regular midnight walks.

Authorities have found his bloody clothes at Baya Beach, a popular tourist spot known for water sports and vibrant nightlife, and divers located Hogan’s cell phone in the ocean.

Part of the beach remained closed to fishermen and tourists Saturday as authorities searched for more evidence.

A U.S. Navy ship on a routine port visit to Curacao dispatched a helicopter shortly after Hogan’s disappearance to search the beach, ocean and a nearby waterway, but crews did not find anything, said Lt. Commander John Daniels.

Hogan lived with his wife in Toni Kunchi, a peaceful neighborhood outside the capital, Willemstad, that is home to diplomats and wealthy business owners.

Hogan, who has legal residence in Florida, arrived in Curacao in August 2008 for a two-year assignment, according to U.S. State Department records.

He also had consular duties for the nearby Dutch island of Aruba, where Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared in May 2005 during a high school graduation trip.

Hogan completed junior foreign service officer training in 2005 and spent two years as a consular officer in Gaborone, Botswana.

Curacao lies about 30 miles (48 kilometers) off the coast of Venezuela and serves as the headquarters of the Netherlands Antilles government.