KENNEWICK — Ian Gooldy told his family not to worry when he took a job in Mexico in November.
But within weeks the 45-year-old Kennewick father had vanished.
Now, after eight months, dozens of phone calls and a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Gooldy’s family simply wants to know what happened to him.
“You just want to know,” his sister Ann Wright said. “We feel like we need to know. We need that, yes or no? And if it’s a yes, he’s gone. Where is his body so we can bring him home.”
Family and friends recently gathered to remember Gooldy, who they described as a vibrant and outgoing man and the life of the party. He always wanted people to enjoy themselves.
While they admit he had some personal struggles, he also was a successful salesman who worked in California and Seattle before returning to Kennewick.
“(The Tri-Cities) seemed like a healthier environment for him because he was closer with his son here,” said his sister. “He was able to spend more time with him, and be the dad that he wanted to be.”
When his family heard about his plans to take a job in Mexico, they were concerned. He tried to assure them that it was going to be a short visit, a few weeks of a trial period and if he didn’t like the job, he could return.
He said he was working with a college friend to train sales teams on how to sell over the phone.
And, in the beginning, it seemed to be going well.
He was sharing photos of the beautiful scenery and was living in an apartment with his boss — the friend that recruited him.
Then in the days around Thanksgiving 2020, everything changed.
Disappearance in Mexico
That’s when his father, Jim Gooldy, began getting a series of increasingly concerning phone calls.
In the days around Nov. 26, Ian Gooldy called his dad to say someone broke into his apartment and took everything.
“I don’t have any paper to prove that I’m an American citizen,” Jim Gooldy recalled his son telling him. “I got what’s on my back basically.”
Ian Gooldy moved to a hotel, while his roommate went to stay with his fiancée. He didn’t tell anyone where he was staying because he didn’t feel safe.
“Half of me says, ‘I want to make this work, but the other half says I should come home, but I don’t want to come home with absolutely nothing,’” he told his dad.
The Kennewick man had a plan to get his ID back. He was working with a “finder,” who had tracked down the stolen items. He sounded nervous when he shared the plan with his father.
On that phone call, he gave his father a “safe word” because he worried he was going into a dangerous situation.
“My dad told him not to do it,” Wright said. “Whatever you’ve got in those suitcases is not worth it. You’ll get new clothes. We’ll go to the consulate and get new documentation, and he insisted. He said, ‘I have to go.’”
Jim Gooldy transferred his son $250, in case it was a shakedown. The money was withdrawn from an ATM in Mexico.
Ian told his dad that he planned to return to the United States as soon as he got his items back.
A half hour later, his father called him.
Ian Gooldy said he was in a park-like area where two rivers come together. As part of the conversation, Ian used the safe word — Columbia.
“I said, ‘OK son. I hope everything is all right,’” Jim Gooldy said, and his son replied, “I love you, Dad. And that was our last call. When I called the next time, there was no answer.”
About 10 minutes later, Jim Gooldy received a text message from his son’s phone with a “thumbs up” emoji, which was something that Ian never did.
Soon after, he received a map pinpointing where the phone was located. He and Ian’s sister kept calling the phone every half hour until a Spanish-speaking stranger answered. Jim Gooldy thought he dialed a wrong number and hung up.
After sending a text in Spanish using Google translate, they learned Ian’s phone was found on a trail by a stream.
That was the last clue they got that night.
Searching for Ian
The hunt for Ian that followed has been marked with long waits, scant information and seemingly little help from Mexican authorities.
In one of their first conversations with the U.S. Consulate in Puerto Vallarta, an employee denied that anyone goes missing in that town.
“We’ve never had anybody missing here, unless they want to be missing,” Jim Gooldy was told. “They go off the grid.”
But with Ian’s frequent communications with his family members and the fact he left behind a young son of his own, his relatives didn’t believe he wanted to stay missing.
They soon learned that to work with the police, they first needed to hire a Mexican attorney. Even after they found one to help, it took several more days before the police report was filed.
“We kept begging and pleading, saying, ‘Can you do a GPS (search) on that phone?’” Jim Gooldy said. “The phone was still being used for almost two weeks before it obviously went dead.”
When the hotel cleared out Ian’s room, they took a video that showed he had a second cellphone. It was taken by police, and Ian’s family doesn’t know what was on the phone.
Once able to travel, they went to Mexico to meet with their attorney. They said the attorney and police were positive.
“We met with the consulate. They basically told us everything that we can’t do,” Wright said.
While the trip was productive, they rarely get updates on the status of the investigation. They’ve asked for reports, but haven’t received any news.
They monitor news reports from Puerto Vallarta and see stories of bodies recovered in the area, but can only hope that a DNA sample from Jim Gooldy was entered into a national missing person database and will help identify Ian if he’s found.
“I think one of the biggest frustrations has been that we’re talking about a foreign country,” said his sister. “Obviously, there’s a huge language barrier. There’s a completely different legal system. …. When we were sitting in front of them, it was a priority to them … as soon as we leave we don’t see that they’re acting on anything.”
The family also formed a Facebook group to share information and try to get help from the authorities.
And family members have regularly called the consulate trying to get updates, and keep contacting their attorney. They are hoping putting pressure on the authorities will lead to someone finding him.
Family and friends went to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on July 31 for a mass of well-being, sharing fond stories about Ian Gooldy.
His father and sister hope Ian Gooldy is still alive but, at the same time, admit the chances seem slim.
“He could be dead, and I would hate it, but we could have closure, and his son could have closure,” said his father.
“The chances of him being alive at this point eight months later are pretty slim because considering there’s be no contact whatsoever, no activity on his accounts,” said his sister. “So, yeah, the chances of him being out there are very, very slim. But I do have hope.”
