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TROPICAL 'COLD CASE' HEATING UP
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/50680.htm

By DAN KADISON
PHOTO HAUNTING MEMORIES: New York travel writer Claudia Kirshhoch, 29, disappeared after spending time at this bar in Jamaica in 2000. Her parents, Mary Ann and Fred, say the case has disturbing echoes in this year's Aruba disappearance.

August 1, 2005 -- The anguished family of a Queens travel writer who mysteriously vanished in the Caribbean five years ago says there are chilling similarities between her case and that of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, missing on Aruba.

"There are so many similarities — it's terribly stressful. We haven't slept much," said Fred Kirschhoch, the father of talented Frommer's Travel Guides editor Claudia Kirschhoch, 29. Claudia, who lived in Astoria, disappeared while on her way to a Sandals beach resort in Cuba for an assignment in May 2000.

The company sponsoring her trip had canceled at the last minute, during her stopover in Montego Bay, Jamaica. So it offered Kirschhoch a chance to see its Negril operations, and she accepted.

There, she befriended a bartender who took her to a reggae concert the night before she disappeared. Holloway, 18, also attended a concert the night before she vanished. Also like Holloway, one of the last sightings of Kirschhoch was on a beach.

Kirschhoch's parents, Fred and Mary Ann, believe that their daughter is dead and that two people — now former employees of Sandals — were either directly responsible for her death or know how she died. Those workers have consistently proclaimed their innocence.

The FBI has placed the matter into their "cold case" files, and the Kirschhochs charge that the local police don't seem interested in finding out how and why their daughter was killed, possibly to protect the island's tourism industry or someone involved.

But the Holloway case has generated new interest in their daughter's disappearance.

Holloway was last seen May 30 leaving a nightclub in Aruba with three men. No one has yet been charged.

Amid international media attention on that case, a Jamaican caller phoned a U.S. radio station last month to say two men had told him years ago that Claudia Kirschhoch was buried in a 55-gallon drum and that they knew where the drum was buried.

The Kirschhochs' own investigator is looking into the tip, as well as others, including one the dad said stemmed from an anonymous letter several years ago. That note stated that his daughter was slipped a date-rape drug at a party, fell into convulsions and died.

Meanwhile, the Kirschhochs sued Sandals in 2002, saying that the company didn't apprise their daughter of known risks in the area. The suit also charges that the firm spoiled evidence that might have led to arrests.

The company said in an e-mail last week, "Sandals Resorts feels great sympathy for the Kirschhoch family. This is a tragedy that no one should have to experience, and the company has been unwavering in its commitment to support authorities in the investigation into the disappearance of Claudia."