The disappearance of Max DeVries: What happened in Aruba?
Last Seen On HolidayThere’s a disturbingly long history of mysterious disappearances in the Caribbean. Perhaps the best-known is that of Natalee Holloway, who was murdered in Aruba in May 2005.
Only about a year earlier, another teenager – Max DeVries from Brighton, Michigan – vanished in similarly strange circumstances off the coast of Aruba. It happened after he went jet-skiing with a seemingly friendly man the family had met on their holiday.
Though the man returned, Max never did. Despite an extensive search mission, Max was never found, with Aruban authorities concluding that he was lost at sea. However, Yvonne grew convinced that foul play was involved. Now the case gets renewed attention in the Crime+Investigation series Last Seen On Holiday.
A chance meeting
Max DeVries was born on 18th April 1990 to George and Yvonne DeVries. The couple welcomed a daughter, Dominique, two years later. Max was a popular boy and loved being on the ocean. However, tragedy struck when George died of a heart attack on 10th November 2002.
Knowing her son’s fondness for water sports, Yvonne decided to help cheer her children up by taking them on holiday to the Caribbean. The island of Aruba, with its abundant, crystal-clear waters and kid-friendly amenities, seemed the ideal place for the DeVries clan to stay.
While there, they even became friendly with two fellow American tourists, who introduced themselves as a father and his adopted son. The men went parasailing with the DeVries family and later jet-skiing with Max, who gushed about the experience afterwards.
Max DeVries is lost at sea
The older man offered to take Max on another jet-skiing adventure. Yvonne was initially reluctant, but acquiesced after the man pledged to cover the rental fee. In the event, though they were only supposed to be gone for 45 minutes, more than an hour slipped by.
Aruban authorities launched a sea search that eventually found the older man but not Max. The man said that both machines had stalled in the water, with Max falling off and drifting out of sight. However, Yvonne was suspicious.
In 2024, Yvonne told the Kitchen Table Research podcast that the older man ‘had scratches on his neck, on his arm, and on his hand. And I knew right away that those were Max’s defensive scratch marks.’
What happened to Max DeVries?
A number of theories have sprung up online. A background check revealed that the older man had been arrested in California for crimes against children, which sparked fears that Max may himself have been a victim of sexually predatory behaviour and subsequently drowned. During the sea search for Max, police knocked on the door of the room where the younger man was supposedly staying, but got no response.
According to Yvonne, the man in his 30s turned up out of the blue just as his father was returning to shore. The son claimed to have been in his room, so why had he apparently not heard the knocking?
There are also some similarities to the case of Amy Lynn Bradley, who vanished from a cruise ship in the Caribbean in March 1998. As the ship was near Curaçao’s shore at the time, there is speculation that Bradley was smuggled off the ship and sold into sexual slavery.
Could something similar have happened to Max DeVries? Given the prevalence of sex trafficking in the Caribbean, could he have been discreetly sold to traffickers once the jet skis were out of sight? Some investigators and the family have considered this theory, though no evidence has ever been established to support it.
The long road to justice for Max
The FBI did begin investigating Max DeVries’ disappearance, but abandoned the case in 2008. This was purportedly to divert resources to counterterrorism operations. However, the FBI never recommenced investigating Max’s disappearance.
Yvonne and Dominique are now aiming to pressure the FBI to reopen Max’s case. Only then may the family finally be able to take concrete steps towards finding out what really happened to Max that fateful day in Aruba.
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