Missing man presumed drowned
• June 4, 2008
A 22-year-old Naval Air Technical Training Center student who disappeared in April is presumed to have drowned.
Craig Hoskie went missing the morning of April 12 after a night at Pensacola Beach with several friends.
Troy Brown, a missing persons investigator with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, said Wednesday that he and other investigators ruled out foul play or the theory that Hoskie went absent without leave.
“We’re pretty confident that he drowned,” Brown said. “We just don’t have his body, which means we have to keep an open investigation.”
Hoskie, of Albuquerque, N. M., and his friends, who also are in the Navy, arrived at the beach after 6 p.m. April 11. They bought beer and checked into the Days Inn, a Sheriff’s Office report said.
After drinking and walking around the boardwalk, the men went to their hotel room about 9 p.m.
They continued drinking and later decided to go for a walk and a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, the report said.
One of Hoskie’s friends told sheriff’s deputies that he went back to the hotel room after about an hour, and Hoskie was sitting in a lounge chair on the beach, the Sheriff’s Office said. The friend said Hoskie was gone when he returned to the beach two hours later.
The friend found Hoskie’s clothing, but he couldn’t find Hoskie, according a report.
With nearly two months passed since Hoskie’s disappearance, Brown said the active investigation has long been concluded.
“Our guys out at the beach are well aware of it, and all of the charter boat captains are well aware of it,” Brown said. “Every expert we talked to said if he did come up soon after, he would have been taken out to sea fairly quickly.”
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