Published: 16th June 2006
Missing mum - man re-arrested in Ecuador
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MISSING: Jenny PopeA HOTEL security guard in Ecuador is being held in connection with the disappearance of a Mossley mum during a backpacking tour.
Jenny Pope, 50, had been travelling alone on the "trip of a lifetime" around South America when she went missing on January 10.
Today, the Foreign Office confirmed that a man arrested then released by police on May 19 had been re-arrested and remains in custody.
In messages of support to the family on the internet, one well-wisher said a news report on Ecuador TV claimed clothes belonging to the missing nurse had been found at an address linked to the security guard.
At the time of his original arrest, the suspect was named in a local paper as a security guard at the Princess Maria hotel in the town of Banos, where Mrs Pope was last seen alive. He quit his job a month after Mrs Pope vanished to move to Santa Domingo, where he was originally arrested.
Local reports say the man was originally held on suspicion of clearing out Mrs Pope's bank account. During the search for her, police recovered CCTV images of a man using her bank cards to withdraw money.
They showed a man taking money from a cash machine at the times Mrs Pope's account was accessed. Her overdraft limit was reached shortly after her last message home as a result of a series of withdrawals in Banos and Santa Domingo.
Mrs Pope's husband, David, and son, Stefan, 22, flew to Ecuador in a bid to track her down, but Mr Pope conceded the chances of finding his wife alive were "grim". They remain in South America.
20 May 2006
BACKPACK MUM: MAN IS ARRESTED
By Paul Byrne - article
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POLICE investigating the disappearance of backpacking mum Jennifer Pope in Ecuador have arrested a man. Francisco Sanchez Chica, 29, a guard in the hotel where Mrs Pope stayed, was held on Wednesday on suspicion of taking cash from her account. She has not been in contact with her family since January 9 this year. Her bank account was emptied between January 10 and 17 and she failed to catch a flight home she had pre-booked.
Mrs Pope, 50, went alone to South America from home in Mossley, Greater Manchester. Her husband David, 57, and son Stefan, 22, visited the country in March to look for her.
Three UK detectives traveled to Ecuador in February to aid the investigation.
Published: 8th March 2006
Missing mum ‘murdered’ - article
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POLICE believe Jenny Pope has been murdered.A MANHUNT is underway in Ecuador as detectives admit they believe missing backpacker Jennifer Pope has been murdered.
The 50-year-old nurse vanished without trace nearly two months ago while travelling alone on a trip-of-a-lifetime through South America.
A suspect, described as a black man, has been captured on CCTV making repeated withdrawals from Jenny’s bank account the week after she disappeared.
Police arrived back in Manchester yesterday (Wednesday) clutching the footage they hope could nail the Mossley mum’s ‘killer’.
The images, which are described as "not very good", have been flown home to be enhanced by experts. It has emerged that Ecuadorian police had the footage a month ago but were looking at the wrong section of the tape.
The day after she last contacted her family, five withdrawals were made at the Bank of Pichincha in Banos in the space of three minutes. Her cashcard was then used 13 times at another branch in Santo Domingo.
The equivalent of £2,500 was taken from the account which was closed after exceeding its £1,500 overdraft limit.
Husband David, 57, and son Stefan, 22, flew to Ecuador on Friday to join Detective Superintendent Kevin Duffy, Detective Inspector Derek Weaver and Spanish-speaking Detective Constable Amanda Murray.
The officers, who had no powers of investigation in the country, were understood to be privately "frustrated" at the speed the case was progressing.
Asked if he thought she was dead, DS Duffy said: "I never give up hope, but having been in Ecuador for a week I can see no other explanation for her disappearance."
Meanwhile, David and Stefan, of the Dalton Buildings, off Mossley Road, Mossley, arrived in Banos yesterday — the town where Jenny sent her final email home on 9 January. It is understood they will continue the search for another fortnight.
