Sarm Joan Lillian Heslop[2] (born 19 December 1979),[3] is a British woman who went missing from a catamaran, moored in a bay off the western coast of Saint John, one of the United States Virgin Islands, in March 2021.
She was last seen by a third party at a restaurant on 7 March, and was believed to have taken a dinghy with her boyfriend back to the yacht she was staying on.
Heslop, originally from Southampton, and 41 at the time of her disappearance, was staying on a 47-foot (14 m) long catamaran, the Siren Song, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
[4][5] Heslop was working with her boyfriend, Ryan Bane, a native of Michigan, on the catamaran as a chef in the luxury yacht business; they were available for private charters.
[2][10] The nine-hour wait between the initial police contact, and when Ryan Bane called the coastguard, has been questioned by Heslop's family and a fellow skipper of a boat moored nearby.
[13] The refusal to allow authorities to search the boat was on the advice of the boyfriend's attorney; however, local police did issue citations to Bane on account of not being allowed to search the boat, for not having registration documentation, and for safety equipment violations.
[15] Police on Saint John searched the coastline with drones, divers and sniffer dogs, but no evidence was found of Heslop.
It was stated that she was in a black dress with flowers upon it, but in the CCTV imagery, she was observed wearing a top with either shorts or a skirt.