Case Details
NCOUC - Group 3
Missing or Unidentified Person
On May 20, 1990, the crew of the Singapore-registered cargo ship MV Pocahontas—a vessel owned by a Belgian company and loaded with bananas—made a grim discovery after docking at Norfolk International Terminal in Virginia. Inside the refrigerated cargo hold, they found the bodies of two unidentified men who had been stowing away.
Just four days earlier, on May 16, the ship had dealt with a fire in the refrigeration area while sailing about 80 miles southeast of Cape Henry, Virginia, around 5:30 a.m. The crew quickly put out the blaze using the ship's built-in carbon dioxide fire suppression system, then kept the hold sealed until they reached port.
Autopsies later showed that both men had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. It's still unclear exactly where the deadly gas came from—whether the stowaways started a small fire themselves to stay warm in the freezing hold (which was kept around 40°F), or if it leaked from the CO₂ system used to extinguish the earlier blaze.
The two men were believed to be illegal stowaways who likely boarded in Colombia, most probably at Cartagena (the country's main port for such shipments, since Medellín is inland). The voyage to Norfolk typically took 11 to 14 days.
One of the men, known in records as UP6634 (and sometimes referenced as a Norfolk John Doe case), was a Hispanic adult male estimated to be under 40, most likely between 20 and 35 years old. He stood about 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighed around 113 pounds, with medium-length black hair, brown eyes, and a mustache paired with a goatee. He was found wearing a blue and white pullover shirt, a blue and black long-sleeve shirt, a black t-shirt, gray pants, blue jeans, a brown belt, white underpants, a pair of orange gloves, white tube socks and blue socks, black sneakers, and a brown string medallion necklace. That necklace, in particular, suggested he may have come from or boarded near the Medellín area of Colombia.
