A New York man died while on a solo trip to Colombia. His grieving mother is trying to map out his final moments

CNN
 — 

Omar Watson made a promise to his mother before he left New York City for Colombia in late February.

Moments before he climbed into a rideshare to the airport, they hugged in the kitchen of their Brooklyn home. She reminded him of her only request whenever he travels.

“I told him, ‘Omar, if nothing else, make sure every time you get into your Airbnb at night, you message me and say, ‘Mommy, I’m OK,’” Hyacinth Watson told CNN. He said he would.

Her 31-year-old son sent her a message after his first full day in Bogotá on February 24. And the second day. And the third day. He did not check in on his fourth night, so she called him instead.

It was the last time she heard his voice. In the early afternoon on February 29, less than two days after that phone call, Omar Watson was found dead in the bathroom of his Airbnb.

His American passport was on a wooden dresser near the apartment unit entrance, according to a report from police investigators in Bogotá. But his phone, iPad and wallet had vanished, his mother said.

And so began Hyacinth Watson’s five-month ordeal to unravel the mystery on how her only child died in an unfamiliar country more than 2,000 miles away. Without her son’s phone, which likely would have offered clues, the grieving mother was left to wonder: How did he spend his final days? Was he alone when he died inside the white stucco apartment building? And why did his red canvas suitcase, which arrived months later, contain petite feminine clothes — along with his items?

“There’s not a day that I don’t break down. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I had taken a flight and gone to see him,” she told CNN in July, wiping her tears with trembling hands. “I don’t sleep very well at night. I barely eat.  My entire life is different. And nobody is telling me how my child died.”

Two days of silence — and then a dreaded phone call

As an unmarried online stock trader and entrepreneur who lived with his parents in Brooklyn, Watson was not tied to a desk job. His iPad was his business portal, and he took it everywhere he went, his mother said.

He was an avid solo traveler, and had been to a handful of countries, including Japan, Brazil, Mexico and France. After his one-week stay in Colombia, he was planning to go to Portugal.

“He just wanted to see the world. Any country he could travel (to), he did,” his mother said. “I never ever imagined that his death would happen during his travel.”

Colombia is an increasingly popular travel destination for Americans and other international tourists. From January to June this year, more than a quarter of foreign visitors to Colombia were from the US, according to the nation’s tourism ministry. It listed Bogotá as having the largest percentage of non-resident foreign tourists.

But traveling to Colombia, which also has a history of racism against Black people, is not without risk.

Shortly before Watson’s visit, the US Embassy in Bogotá issued a warning about eight suspicious deaths of US citizens in Medellin between November 1 and December 31. Last year, the embassy warned that robbers were drugging tourists in the country with scopolamine, a drug nicknamed “devil’s breath.”

Hyacinth Watson had seen the embassy’s warning and worried that her son had been the victim of foul play.

She rehashed their last phone conversation over and over for any hints of health problems. He’d told her he’d vomited and had diarrhea for a few days but was feeling better after getting medication from a local pharmacy. She recalls asking him why his breathing sounded a little slower than usual, but he insisted he was fine, she said.

She’d considered getting on a flight to Bogotá to pick him up and bring him home to New York City. He gave her his Airbnb address at her insistence, but he told her not to worry.

“I asked him if he wanted me to come and get him. He said, ‘Yes,’ but then he changed his mind. So I said, ‘OK, he’s a young man. Maybe he wants to stay a little while longer and enjoy his visit,’ ” she said.

When he did not answer her calls for the next two days, she knew something was off — it was unlike him not to return her calls. She contacted the US Embassy in Bogotá and implored them to check on him at the address he gave her, she said.

On March 1, the embassy called her with the tragic news.

For the first few weeks after her son’s death, Hyacinth Watson was numb. She and her husband felt adrift without him and unsure of how to navigate what felt like a bureaucratic nightmare.

They needed to figure out the logistics of sending his remains back to New York. The stunned parents also needed to plan his funeral, but without her son’s phone, she didn’t know how to share the awful news with his friends.

Then the flurry of documents started arriving from Colombia. The language barrier — she doesn’t speak Spanish — left her struggling to interpret their meaning and nuances.

The US Embassy in Bogotá sent her an initial investigative report compiled by local authorities and dated February 29, the day her son’s body was found. A colleague from her job as a teacher assistant in Brooklyn sat down with her and helped her translate.

Watson shared the eight-page death investigation report with CNN. It describes the moments leading up to the discovery of her son’s body and paints a picture of the scene.

In the report, a person described as the Bogotá apartment’s administrator said he last talked to Watson around 4 p.m. on February 28, the day after his mother’s call. The administrator told the police he could not reach Watson the next day, so he entered the apartment and found him in the bathroom “without vital signs,” according to the report.

Omar Watson was found in a kneeling position on the white tile floor, wearing a black cotton T-shirt and slumped against a door frame, according to the report from police investigators in Bogotá.

First responders noted some over-the-counter medication in the apartment, including a Unisom PM Pain bottle, an unopened DayQuil bottle and a bottle of Doloff, a Latin American pain medication similar to Tylenol, along with a brown stain that appeared to be vomit on the floor near the kitchen. The report said apart from his passport and suitcase, there were no other valuables at the scene.

It listed his cause of death as “to be established.”

For months, Watson tried to find out how her son died and what happened to his wallet and electronics. She called and emailed the US Embassy, which told her in March that the autopsy would be finished in three months, she said.

In her frantic search for information, she unsuccessfully tried to reach the owner of the Airbnb, she said. The host of the Airbnb apartment listed in the investigators’ report declined to comment when asked by CNN via the app for information on Watson’s death. “Sorry but I don’t have any information about that,” the host said in a message.

Airbnb said such incidents are rare during stays and has measures in place for hosts and guests, including a 24-hour safety line and an in-app emergency services feature that connects users to local law enforcement.

“Our hearts go out to the Watson family during this incredibly difficult time and our team stands ready to provide our support,” a spokesperson told CNN.

Watson told CNN in late July that she had not received any autopsy or toxicology reports. “I don’t know what happened down there. I cannot get any answers. I keep trying to get information, but nobody is listening to me,” she said. “An autopsy was done, but I have not received any results on the cause of death.”

In early August, CNN reached out to the Colombia Attorney General’s Office, which oversees criminal investigations. In an email, Ofir Velandia Forero, a prosecutor for the agency, said an autopsy report was received from forensics investigators on April 24.

The autopsy determined that Omar Watson died as a result of an interlobular pulmonary thromboembolism associated with right deep vein thrombosis and determined his cause of death was natural, the email said. The forensics investigator ruled out signs of violence or trauma to the body, it said.

Deep vein thrombosis typically develops when a blood clot forms in the leg. The risk is higher when people are sitting in tight spaces for long periods, including while traveling. Pulmonary embolism is a life-threatening condition that occurs when a clot breaks off and travels to the lung, cutting off blood flow. 

CNN called Hyacinth Watson with the news. She gasped when told what Colombian investigators reported caused her son’s death. After a long pause, she asked what that meant and how long investigators had known about it.  When told the autopsy was concluded in April, she sobbed, her soft cries echoing through the phone.

“How is that possible?  I did not know that. No one told me, why didn’t they tell me?” she asked. She asked to get off the phone to compose herself and notify family members.

It’s unclear why the autopsy results were not shared with Watson’s family sooner. Velandia, the Colombia prosecutor, did not respond to additional questions and declined CNN’s request for the official autopsy and toxicology results.

In the initial report, Colombian investigators said they’d requested additional tests, including toxicological, psychopharmacological and alcohol tests. It’s unclear whether those tests were done.

Velandia said the case was “archived on April 25 due to atypical conduct” but can be revisited if there’s new evidence. Velandia did not specify what “atypical conduct” had occurred, saying further details in the case were confidential and would be shared with the embassy.

The US State Department did not respond to CNN’s questions on whether the embassy received the autopsy results in April. In a statement, it said the embassy helped transport Watson’s body and personal effects back to the United States, but did not divulge other details.

“Out of respect to the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss.”

Omar Watson’s body arrived at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 21, nearly a month after his flight took off from the same airport. An accompanying death certificate listed the cause of death as natural.

At the time, Watson’s mother wondered how the medical examiner in Colombia arrived at that conclusion. In a final attempt for closure before her son’s funeral in early April, she tried unsuccessfully to get an autopsy done in New York City.

Watson was laid to rest two weeks later in Brooklyn. At his memorial, loved ones shared stories about his love for cooking, the Thanksgiving holiday and a good medium-rare steak, said Carey Walton, his cousin. Walton said he misses his sense of humor the most. Watson wasn’t the loudest person in the room, but his comedic timing was impeccable, he said. Sometimes at family gatherings, he’d jokingly mimic his mother’s Jamaican accent.

“Like when he had a good meal and was full, he’d say,’Mi belly bottom a drop out,’” Walton said. “I miss our time spent together exploring different restaurants. How we would eat to the point we could hardly move and make fun of each other after.”

Three months after the funeral, in late July, FedEx delivered Watson’s suitcase to Brooklyn, setting off a new wave of emotions.

Inside the suitcase were his clothes, along with dresses, blouses, pink sandals and silver hoop earrings. His mother said the clothes appeared new and while her son was social and made friends during his solo travels, he did not mention meeting anyone in Colombia.

“I don’t know of a girlfriend … the suitcase made me more confused,” she said.

Even with the autopsy results Colombian officials provided to CNN this month, Hyacinth Watson said she has a lot of questions. She’s still trying to reach out to authorities in Colombia for more details.

“I’m thankful for that little part of the information, but it’s not enough,” she said. “I’m wondering if that [pulmonary embolism] was the only reason. Is there more to the story?” she asked.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me the results when they came out in April? Where is the official autopsy report? Where are the toxicology results? I want to know — was there anything else in his system?”

The thought of her son’s final moments alone, without his family there, is too much for her to bear. She talks to a therapist weekly to help her cope and takes part in church youth activities to keep her busy. The kids remind her of a young and curious Omar, she said.

But when she’s alone with her thoughts, a lot floods through her mind and she second-guesses herself. She wishes she’d trusted her instincts that day in February and gone to Colombia.

And she thinks about that last hug in their kitchen.

“If only I knew,” she said, her voice cracking. “I would have given him a longer hug. I would have held him tighter.”

CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.