NY Couple Missing in Caribbean Likely Died on Way to Airport

NY Couple Missing in Caribbean Likely Died on Way to Airport

Police in the Dominican Republic say the missing couple from New York who mysteriously vanished while vacationing in the Caribbean country are believed to be dead. 

Orlando Moore, 40, and his 52-year-old girlfriend Portia Ravenelle, left Newark Liberty International Airport for a romantic getaway on March 23. They were supposed to fly back four days later. They never came home to Mount Vernon.

At a news briefing late Tuesday, police in the Dominican Republic said a woman thought to be Ravenelle was found unconscious, with traumatic injuries to her body, on the side of a highway March 27, the day the couple had been expected to fly home. She died several days later from her injuries. 

Four days after the woman was found, a body resembling the characteristics of Moore was discovered in a car in the the Caribbean Sea, about 12 to 18 miles where authorities believe the couple got into a car accident on their way to the airport. They had rented a vehicle to make their way home; authorities haven’t been able to recover the car from the water because of current conditions, but they expect it is the same vehicle the couple rented to drive to the airport.

Authorities are awaiting fingerprint and other testing to confirm the identities.