Ben Wu from the Webster Theater; Missing, Presumed Dead

[Todd]

Just found out about this. I didn\'t know him well, but always thought he was a great guy.

A Middletown man missing in the British Virgin Islands since Jan. 12 is presumed dead, friends say.

Ben Wu, who booked bands at the Webster Theatre in Hartford, was vacationing on the island of Tortola when he disappeared. He was 29.

Wu was last seen walking near Long Bay Beach Resort around 9:30 that Saturday morning. The only sign of him since has been his iPod music player, which washed up on the beach a week later and was linked to Wu via the serial number. Searches by his friends and family, local police and customs officials and the U.S. Coast Guard, which contributed a helicopter with heat-imaging technology, have been fruitless.

"We were pretty confident the other day that he met his end here," Jeff Franklin, Wu\'s roommate, said Tuesday by phone from Tortola. Franklin is staying on the island trying to determine what may have befallen Wu.

Franklin said he spoke to a beach vendor who saw Wu on the morning of Jan. 12 walking toward a rocky cliff as it started to rain. People have speculated that Wu was climbing on the rocks and fell into the water below. He couldn\'t swim.

"Where the iPod was discovered was about 30 feet away from what looks to be a recent rock slide," said Franklin, who was joined for several days by Wu\'s cousins.

Wu\'s parents also traveled to Tortola where his mother, Virginia Wu, took solace in her faith.

"This time is his timing," Virginia Wu wrote in a bulletin board entry on BVINews.com, a local website. "Bible says our departure is already set. So please be happy for Ben. Ben does not want you sad, but rejoice that he is in a safe place now."

Wu, a Connecticut native, grew up in North Stonington and graduated from Wheeler High School in 1996. He started working at the Webster after it opened as a music club in March of that year.

source

[weekapaug19]

there was a bit about this on jambands.com last week.  Never met him but I think I\'ve seen him walking around the place a couple times (if I\'m thinking of the right person)

[kindm's]

Sad.

Why do people who don\'t know how to swim find recreation around water ?

[skalnbyc]

Sad.

Why do people who don\'t know how to swim find recreation around water ?

Almost as weird as growing up and never learning to ride a bike.

A friend of mine from high school was swept away by an unexpected rogue wave on the beach in Hawaii.  Walking on the sand when it came out of nowhere.  

Sad to hear.

[Todd]