3 of 6: The Investigation

After the initial jet ski ride, the family spend a little more time together before calling it a night. But something sticks with Yvonne something that Senior said earlier that day while the families were together, something very off putting. This is episode three the Investigation. He mentions that before Yvonne's encounter with Junior in the lobby, he and Junior had seen Yvonne and the kids playing at the pool from their hotel room window. He said he spotted them right away and knew they had to meet them. This is a comment that sticks with Yvonne, but considering the positive and fun encounters they've had with these men, she tries not to think too much into it. The next day, May twelfth, two thousand and four, started out like any other day on this seemingly beautiful vacation. Around noon, Yvonne, Max, and Dominique spend some time in the pool. While there, they're met by Senior, who comes alone. He brings a book and decides to spend some time pool side as well. He strikes up a conversation with Yvonne and mentions how much fun Junior said he had on the jet skis the day before. He asks Evon if Max could come on a ride with him, and even offered to pay for Max. Yvonne immediately says no, since Max just went jet skiing the day before. The next day, I was at the pool with Dominique and Pat and the dad comes and wants to hang out at the pool. He comes with this little book hotel and sits down and talks to us for a while, and it's like, hey, you know, Max, you want to go on jet ski with the maid juniors. I'm sleeping. He seems to have gotten pretty beat up by the jet ski ride yesterday. That's the one thing I really wanted to do on this trip was to go on the jet ski and Max like, geah, uncle again. I'm like, nope, you already went. You already went yesterday. And I'm like, no, you're not going. And then that's when Senior had offered to pay for Max's jet ski ride and done. He said, no, that's okay, you know, he already went. This went on for a little while he did, he wore me down. I'm like, okay, go ahead, don't go by the sandbar. So now he's going with a grown adult to the sandbar after he's been told not to go and I didn't know this where they went, but they ended up there. As yvon mentions, she agrees to let Max go after he begs to go on one more ride. This is where there is a major turn of events. After an hour passes, Yvonne realizes the time and that Max and Senior have not returned yet. The jet skis are only rented out at forty five minute increments, so she immediately knew something was wrong. The ride was supposed to be about forty five minutes, about an hour whatever time passed, and I'm looking at the cloth. There's still not back. There's still not back. And I went down to the water's edge and there, you know, were the whole company, the jet ski company, and one guy's looking at the binoculars to the left to where the sandbar is, and I said, I'm looking for my son. Have they come back yet? And he goes dark haired boy and I said, yeah, no, we're looking for him. They haven't come back yet. And at that point, that's sinking, feeling like something's wrong. Primm cam in the in the hotel room there. That's when I was told that Max was missing. I'll just. At this point, everyone is in a panic. The hotel manager even comes out to help look for Max and Senior. The manager also makes a trip up to Senior's room to talk to Junior and let him know what's going on. However, there is no answer when they attempt to contact Junior in the room. This immediately raises red flax Where is Junior? Senior had told yvon he he was up in the room, so why was he not answering the door. After attempting to contact Junior with no success, the hotel sends out search teams on the water to look for Max and Senior, and after three hours of searching, Yvonne notices a boat returning with Senior and the two jet skis, but Max is not with them and is still nowhere to be found. As the boat continues to approach the shore, Junior suddenly appears and approaches Yvonne in shock and disbelief. She asks him where he's been and he replies that he was drunk and passed out in the room, although he seems perfectly fine while talking to Yvonne. More red flags continue to go up as the search for Max continues. When Senior finally pulls up in the boat, yvon immediately notices scratch marks on his face and neck. She asks what happened, and he states that he got the scratches trying to get back on the jet ski. She asks him where Max is, And at this time Senior couldn't seem to get his story straight. And I asked him what happened there? You know, I noticed the scratches on his neck, on his arms, and he said them, we went to the sandbar, a sandbar. You were never supposed to have gone to the sandbar. That was I don't know, three or six miles past where they were supposed to go. So after he was told not to, he ended up taking Max there. They said they got off to be in the sandbar because I guess it wasn't that deep. And then the jet skis didn't start again, and that Max tied them up back to back, so when they tried to get started, the other one didn't start either. So now they had these two jet skis that weren't going to start floating and inoperable. There, he said, Max and I had agreement, you know, we were just going to save our energy and not talk first. You know, the story has just changed multiple times. I don't even know which order was told first. But one story was Max went swimming to shore to get help. The next one was Max took his life's jacket off and went swimming and got stuck in a rip current it was going down. The next one was we were on the jet skis and Max was on one side and I was on the other side, and I heard a thump and then I saw Max floating away and he didn't try saving him. He's like, no, that was our agreement, you know, to save our energy and not talk. I do a home daycare. I would never let a child just float away, you know. I would have, by all means, went swimming after it. And Max would never have taken off his life jacket first of all. I mean, he was so good with water safety. He would never have taken his life jacket off. Junior, as we're standing on the water's edge, comes up walking. He goes, Oh, what's going going on? Where's my dad? And I looked at him, like, where have you been all day? The police had been looking for you. He said he was sleeping in his room that he had hung over from the night before. These rooms were not very big. I'm sure anybody listening knows if you had a night of drinking. Yeah, you can still hear a door knock, and after twenty four hours, you're going to wake up. Unless you're so drugged near death, you're not going to so anyway, he said he was in his room and he never heard the door knocking. But how did he even know to look at the water's edge for us? Why did he show up there? He would never have known where we were at. Why why was he there? It is absolutely infuriating the lack of investigating that the Aruban police did. There were so many things that should have been done, aside from taking statements from Senior and Junior, despite the obvious signs of grooming, the lies that were told to the Devirees family by these two men, and the fact that they both have a criminal history, the Uruban government did nothing. They failed Max and they failed his family. After releasing these men, the Uruban police continued what is known as the largest search operation in Uruban history in hopes of finding Max. It was also found that Sunshine Water Sports was an illegal operation and was not checking IDs before renting out their equipment. This meant that Max should not have been allowed to operate the jet ski because he was under age. What if they followed protocol like they were supposed to, would that have changed the course of events? These are burning questions. Unfortunately we will never know. Sunshine Water Sports was shut down by Ruben police the following day. On May thirteenth, two thousand and four, as the search for Max continued, Ivan Dominique and Pat Junior and Senior were ordered to stay on the island while the search was in progress. Junior and Senior were brought in a second time for questioning, and by no surprise, their statements changed yet again, and more evidence would come to light, evidence that would Shockyvon and would tell the story of what really happened to Max. In the next episode, we go over that evidence and the conclusion of the search for Max. Episode four. The evidence is available right now. Make sure to follow us on social media at Unseen Truth Podcast and visit Unseen Truth podcast dot com for more case information.