STILL WAITING FOR ANSWERS
Abbey Conner’s drowning at a Mexico resort is shrouded in mystery 18 months later
On her 22nd birthday, about 100 friends and family members gathered this month at a sports center to play volleyball and celebrate. ❚ They wore T-shirts that read “Set for Abbey,” highlighting Abbey Conner’s excellence as a setter, a key position in volleyball. ❚ Her mom and best friends showed off their tattoos, copies of the one Conner got shortly after her 18th birthday. An ocean wave symbolized one of her favorite quotes: “Sometimes in the waves of change, we find our true direction.”
The mood was festive as they swapped their favorite stories: She was the first person they called when they needed someone to talk to. She loved to shop, play board games and swim. She always could see the positive in even the most difficult situations.
But underneath all the talk was a deep sadness. They looked down, at times biting a lip to keep from crying.
Conner wasn’t there. She didn’t live to be 22. She drowned Jan. 12, 2017, in a pool at an upscale resort in Mexico. She was 20.
“There will be days where I’ll be sit-
“How many red flags does the State Department need to protect U.S. citizens? What’s it going to take for somebody to stand up and put a stop to this?” Bill Conner Abbey Conner’s father
ting at my desk and just start crying,” said her big brother, Austin, who nearly drowned in the pool beside his sister.
The circumstances and questions surrounding her death – how she could drown, how Austin Conner could black out and almost drown at the same time, in waist-deep water, before dinnertime – still didn’t make sense.
On vacation with their parents in Playa del Carmen, about 40 miles southwest of Cancun, they had been drinking tequila at the swim-up bar for a couple of hours, but for college kids, it didn’t seem like too much, Austin Conner said.
Abbey and Austin were good swimmers. They grew up on Pewaukee Lake, about 20 miles west of Milwaukee.
How was Abbey’s collarbone broken? Why did Austin have a golf-ball-size lump on his forehead and no memory?
Why didn’t authorities in Mexico interview bartenders and resort guests? What did surveillance video show?
Why didn’t the U.S. State Department find out what happened?
Eighteen months later, Abbey Conner’s family still has no answers.
Her death sparked a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation that has uncovered nearly 200 reports from travelers who said they blacked out after drinking small or moderate amounts of alcohol at luxury resorts across Mexico. Many regained consciousness to find they’d been robbed, assaulted and in some cases taken to jail.
All said they felt lucky to be alive. Some travelers didn’t survive. The Journal Sentinel received reports from three people who visited Mexico as recently as last month – one to Cozumel, one to Los Cabos and one to Cancun – and blacked out after a couple of drinks. Two became violently ill. One woke up covered in bruises. One went to the hospital.
The woman with the bruises – from a small town south of Fort Worth, Texas – did not want her name published because of concerns about backlash. She privately notified authorities in Mexico as well as the State Department.
From a portion of her email to Mexican and U.S. authorities:
I am writing this letter not to get my money back or hurt the hotel in any way. I am writing this to protect travelers in the future. We in no way over drank. I have NEVER blacked out and this was a very very scary situation. ... Mexico is absolutely my favorite place to visit. We go there twice a year most years. I have been coming there since May of 2000. I will not be coming back until this problem with tainted alcohol has been resolved. I do not feel safe.”
“How many red flags does the State Department need to protect U.S. citizens?” said Bill Conner, Abbey’s father, of Pewaukee. “What’s it going to take for somebody to stand up and put a stop to this?”
The Office of Inspector General is investigating how the State Department’s consular offices handled the cases of injuries and deaths. A report is due in the coming months.
The State Department added a warning about potentially tainted alcohol to its information page on Mexico after the Journal Sentinel reports.
The department has kept the main tourist areas in Mexico at a Level 2 warning, suggesting travelers “exercise increased caution.” A Level 3 directs travelers to reconsider their travel plans; Level 4 warns “Do not travel.”
Mexico, including tourist destina-
“There will be days where I’ll be sitting at my desk and just start crying.”
Austin Conner
tions, has seen an increase in violence in the past year. More than 130 politicians were killed before the general election July 1. The overall number of homicides jumped more than 20 percent in 2017, topping 25,000, according to government figures released in June.
In some cases, tourists have been caught in the crossfire. A 27-year-old woman from San Francisco was shot and killed last month as she walked out of a popular taco restaurant in Mexico City with her husband. They had been celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary.
Several airlines cut the number of flights to Mexico resort areas based on shrinking demand. Others plan to follow suit, according to conference calls in July discussing quarterly earnings with financial analysts.
Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Ed Markey, DMass., urged the State Department to put more pressure on Mexican authori- ties to beef up security and crack down on resort areas where American tourists have been injured or killed.
The lawmakers pressed the department to do more to warn travelers of the dangers.
Baldwin drafted a provision included in the State Department’s 2019 budget that would require the department to report within 90 days to the committee on details surrounding tourist incidents and what the agency did in response.
Baldwin called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the business practices of TripAdvisor and other travel websites that promote and sell travel to Mexico.
The Journal Sentinel’s investigation found TripAdvisor had deleted reports from tourists detailing their terrifying experiences, labeling them “hearsay” or saying they were not “family friendly.”
The travel websites steer tourists to the State Department’s website for information on the safety of destinations.
Baldwin reiterated her concerns in a letter this month to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, saying she worried that TripAdvisor’s “underlying business model may facilitate practices that run afoul of federal consumer protection laws.”
“I remain concerned that these entities, upon which Americans increasingly rely for accurate and unbiased reports regarding the safety and quality of destinations, accommodations and activities, could be engaged in practices that instead provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information,” Baldwin wrote.
FTC regulators vowed in November and again in a confirmation hearing in February to look into the matter.
“It is imperative that the commission review – and take appropriate action to stop, if necessary – any deceptive or unscrupulous business practices that direct, without disclosure of possible dangers, American travelers to destinations that may put them at risk,” Baldwin wrote.
Abbey Conner’s family and friends want all vacationers to be aware of the risks.
Natalie Olson met Abbey through club volleyball when the two were juniors in high school.
“She got me to embrace life,” Olson said. “We could be doing absolutely nothing, and she is the person I would want to be around.”