The men who claimed to have unearthed the possible remains of missing photojournalist Sean Flynn, are planning to dig up more gravesites in Cambodia in search of other journalists who disappeared during the civil war, one of the bone hunters said yesterday.
Dave MacMillan, a 29-year-old Australian national, wrote by e-mail yesterday that he and his partner, 60-year-old Briton Keith Rotheram, hope to start excavating more sites within the next few days.
“We currently have field agents in the countryside investigating another five clandestine grave sites pertaining to 10 journalists who were held together in a group, two of which are named to be Sean Leslie Flynn and Dana Stone,” Mr MacMillan wrote.
Mr MacMillan and Mr Rotheram claimed over the weekend to have uncovered early last month the possible remains of Flynn in Kompong Cham province.
The amateur excavation of the site has sparked stern criticism from photographer Tim Page, a close friend of Flynn’s during the 1960s, who said the pair may have “contaminated” a gravesite that could reveal the fates of other journalists missing in Cambodia.
Mr MacMillan, who describes himself as an artist and private investigator, and Mr Rotheram, a guesthouse owner in Sihanoukville city who coincidentally recently opened a bar named “Flynn’s,” have dismissed criticism of their dig.
Mr MacMillan said yesterday that their “investigation is ongoing” and that new excavations could start as early as this week. He declined to say where in the country he and his partner are planning to search or whose remains they are now looking for.
A total of 37 journalists, both Cambodians and foreigners, were killed or went missing in Cambodia between April 1970 and April 1975, according to a pamphlet from the Documentation Center of Cambodia.
Flynn, who turned to photojournalism after following in the footsteps of his famous father, Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, disappeared with fellow war photographer Dana Stone after the pair left Phnom Penh on April 16, 1970, in search of Vietnamese troops operating inside Cambodia.
It is known the pair was captured by Vietnamese troops and later turned over to the Khmer Rouge, but there are few details on their presumed deaths. Mr Flynn’s mother, Lili Damita, reportedly spent huge sums to find his body before she died in 1994.
Mr Page, a fellow war photographer, reiterated in an e-mail yesterday that excavations should be done by the US Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, rather than amateurs. JPAC is the US agency tasked with finding Americans who went missing as a result of past conflicts.
“I would not like to see them do more digs—but I would like to see JPAC dig there, as I have always thought that was the place,” wrote Mr Page, who made a 1990 documentary on his own unsuccessful search for Mr Flynn’s remains.
Mr Page’s statement follows his criticism earlier this week that “there is a very strict procedure to be followed when digging at the site of possible remains and in this case that procedure has not been followed.”
JPAC was not involved in the exhumation of teeth and other remains by Mr MacMillan and Mr Rotheram this month, according to US Embassy spokesman John Johnson. The remains have since been handed over to the embassy and sent to JPAC for testing.
Mr Johnson has declined to say whether the US approves of independent exhumations, and yesterday he also declined to comment on the news that the duo are planning additional digs.
Cambodian Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith wrote in an e-mail that he is unfamiliar with the case of Sean Flynn but that “cooperation from the Ministry of Interior is needed.”
“For this work, you can’t go solo,” he wrote.
Mr MacMillan wrote yesterday that his team has “clearance straight across the board to all of our knowledge with Cambodian authorities.”
Officials have said the team of excavators—Mr MacMillan, his brother Adam, Mr Rotheram and fellow adventurer Scott Brantley—worked with the permission of local authorities during their last dig.
However, Interior Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Khieu Sopheak said yesterday that he was unfamiliar with the matter. Mr MacMillan and Mr Rotheram also reported acting with the full support of Mr Flynn’s half sister, Rory Flynn.
JPAC did not respond to a request for comment, but the US-based Salem-News.com reported yesterday that JPAC’s Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Perry expressed caution about the purported find of Flynn’s remains.
“Perry says that based on what JPAC knows, the area is not likely where the remains of Flynn and Stone are located, though their resting place is almost certainly Cambodia,” the article states.
Mr MacMillan and Mr Rotheram have said they used documentation from DC-Cam and information from an alleged eyewitness to the execution of a foreigner during the 1970s. Mr Rotheram claimed via telephone yesterday that this eyewitness died of dysentery before the end of the dig, but had pointed them to “within three to five meters of the site” when he was alive.
