Hope has run out in the search for 66-year-old Edmond Bradley Solomon III, a Charleston man with dementia who went missing in Cozumel, Mexico, earlier this month.
The search for Solomon pivoted from search and rescue to recovery, according to a statement his cousin posted to Facebook midday on April 14.
"I understand there are still many who want us to keep hoping," cousin Martha Warren wrote. "(W)e have so been hoping and wanting to find Brad alive. But now we must face the nearly insurmountable evidence to the contrary. Hope in the face of hopelessness is not the same as hope in the face of possibilities."
Solomon has been missing since April 3 when a seven-day Royal Caribbean voyage he and his wife, Mimi Hyer Solomon, were vacationing on docked in Cozumel. The cruise was the last big vacation the couple planned to take.
In the fall of 2022 doctors diagnosed Solomon with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder that was slowly eroding Solomon’s independence. The couple celebrated his 66th birthday on the enormous ship that cut through idyllic Caribbean waters.
But just four days later, he wandered off in a market in Cozumel, an island rimmed by white sands and carpeted with dense jungle.
His daughter, Savannah Miller, was in the United States when she heard her father was missing.
She has since pieced together the events that led to his disappearance: with the boat docked, her father and stepmother ducked into restrooms at a shopping area near Cozumel’s cruise terminal. Miller believes that Solomon exited first, rejoining an unfamiliar landscape of vendors and souvenirs. When he didn’t spot his wife, he set off in search of her, his daughter suspects.
Mimi left the bathroom. Anguished minutes passed. She soon realized Solomon was missing and plunged into panic. An all-hands-on-deck search ensued.
Mimi disembarked, while some of her family members stayed on the boat. She hopped into the car of a security guard and together they scoured the streets of Cozumel. But Solomon walks fast, his strides decisive — especially when he’s anxious, Miller said. As the sun set that day he was nowhere to be seen.
Since then, Mimi has worked with local police and public safety officials to launch a search. Miller said confusion about who was in charge initially stymied efforts. But a strategy then prevailed, with the Mexican military largely taking the lead. A few days ago Miller and her boyfriend boarded a plane bound for Mexico, joining the multi-agency push to locate Solomon.
Tourists, locals and officials banded together to sweep the island in a massive grid pattern in search of Solomon.
Some people traversed the city’s plazas on foot, while others crisscrossed the region’s scrubby jungle on ATVs. The family even set up a tip line to field calls reporting sightings, though Miller said most are unsubstantiated. And Warren also thanked people stateside who have supported the family throughout this search.
The group that teamed up in Cozumel to search for Solomon will not disband, according to Miller. They're going to form a permanent emergency team called "Code Brad" in his honor.
"It will be utilized if this ever happens to anyone else," Miller said. "We're so grateful. Although it's tragic, we're appreciative that at least one good thing could come out of it."
Solomon
Cozumel is a tiny, touristy island. But it's also a place that's "very easy to lose one's way" in, according to Warren. Its abundance of jungles and swamps could have been confusing for Solomon.
His disappearance was an accident, she implored to those following near-daily updates on Facebook.
"I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that his complete love for his wife and daughter would never allow him to purposely have this be the ending for them," Warren wrote. "To be honest that has been the driving force for me, I know the Brad I have loved for my entire life would be beyond heartbroken to leave his precious 'girls' to face this for the rest of their lives."
Solomon, a West Ashley native, raised Miller as a single father for much of her childhood. Everyone called him “Mr. Mom.”
Miller was thrilled when he met his wife, and she eagerly walked her dad down the aisle. Years after that backyard ceremony on Edisto Island, his wife has become a cheerleader for Miller and a caregiver for Solomon.
Miller watched her father, a gregarious surfer and former critical care nurse from West Ashley, grow more anxious as his wife assumed a caregiving role. Until last year, Solomon was still riding waves off Isle of Palms, still reeling in redfish off the coast, Miller said.
“Our family is incomplete without all 3 of us,” Miller wrote on Facebook.
He remains somewhere in Cozumel, nearly 3,000 miles from home.
