6 celebrities who went missing and were never found

Sean Flynn was the charismatic son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, and enjoyed brief success as an actor before switching careers and becoming a photojournalist. He was best known for his work covering the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1967 and the Vietnam War.

Sean was just 28 years old when he disappeared in Cambodia while on assignment on April 6, 1970. He and a fellow photojournalist, Dana Stone, had decided to follow a band of North Vietnamese troops into Cambodia, and were stopped at a checkpoint and taken by the Viet Cong.  

Stephen Bell, who worked as a reporter during the war, shared that after Sean and Dana were taken, "no one ever saw them again…I think they were among the first to go missing. It had not reached the point where we knew quite how dangerous it was."

Sean's body was never found, and his mother, Lili Damita, spent several years and millions of dollars trying to discover the whereabouts of her son, until he was declared legally dead in 1984.  

Harold Holt was elected the Prime Minister of Australia in 1966, and spent just under two years in office before disappearing at Cheviot Beach on December 17, 1967. Harold was swimming with friends despite the rough conditions and strong currents present that day, as he was a confident swimmer and spear fisher.

Suddenly, Harold disappeared out of sight of his friends and had seemingly vanished under the waves. A massive search began in an effort to locate the Prime Minister, but rescuers were hampered by large waves and intense conditions.

The 59-year-old's body was never found, sparking a sea of conspiracy theories, including that he was a Chinese spy and had been collected by a submarine, that he faked his death to run away with a lover, or that the CIA assassinated him due to his alleged plans to withdraw Australian troops from the Vietnam War.

Authorities concluded that his official cause of death was accidental drowning due to the rough seas and dangerous currents.

The pioneering female aviator set off on a flight in June 1937 alongside her navigator, Fred Noonan, in an effort to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by airplane. 

Amelia and Fred were due to meet with a ship and refuel at a tiny island in the Pacific on July 2, but they never reached their destination. A major months-long search was sparked to find the trailblazer, only to come up empty with no body to be found.

A bevy of conspiracy theories cropped up after her disappearance, with some believing she had been taken prisoner by the Japanese, while others thought she had landed on a Kiribati island inhabited by coconut crabs and eaten by the huge crustaceans. 

Amelia was officially declared dead on January 5, 1939, and the US government concluded that she had likely run out of fuel and crashed her aircraft into the ocean, never to be seen again.

Zoe McLellan is a successful actress known for her work on Designated Survivor and NCIS: New Orleans, so her disappearance in 2020 stunned her bevy of fans. She was accused by her ex-husband, Jean-Pierre Guy Gillain, of kidnapping their son, Sebastian, in 2019 amid their custody battle.

She was last heard from in 2020 when she filed abuse charges against Jean-Pierre, alleging that he had sexually assaulted their child. "There’s no script I’ve ever read that’s been as awful as this,” she said at the time. 

"However, I always tell my son that we are warriors, not worriers, and we are fighting for him and that I will be able to keep him safe." Jean-Pierre was arrested but eventually released due to lack of evidence.

A felony warrant was then issued to her for kidnapping in May 2021, but Zoe and her son have yet to be seen in the years since. "My number one goal, at this point, is to find my child," Jean-Pierre told RadarOnline in 2021. 

"The last time I saw my son was April 6, 2019. I heard from his mum not too long ago over emails when we tried to find her and find my son, and then she vanished. That was sometime in April of this year."

Zoe was previously accused of kidnapping Sebastian in 2017 when she moved to Canada while filming Designated Survivor, but she was cleared of any charges.

The son of former Vice President of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller, tragically went missing while on a trip to the Asmat region of Dutch New Guinea – now known as South Papua.

Michael was visiting the region to collect indigenous art and to learn about the local people. On November 17, 1961, he was travelling in a catamaran with Dutch anthropologist René Wassing and two local guides when their boat capsized several kilometres from the shore.

The guides swam for help, leaving Michael and René behind, but the 23-year-old eventually decided to set out by himself and look for assistance. He was last seen swimming away by René, and when the Dutchman was rescued the next day, there was no sign of Michael.

Naturally, theories cropped up that he had died of exposure, drowned, or had been attacked by a shark. Some even believe he may have made it to shore only to be killed and eaten by the local tribespeople as revenge for Dutch colonial soldiers killing five Asmat men in 1958.

Michael's body was never found, and he was declared legally dead in 1964. While the cannibalism theory remains a popular one, his twin sister, Mary Rockefeller, refuted these claims and maintained the belief that he drowned at sea.

"Rumours and stories of Michael's having made it to shore – of his having been found, captured, and killed by headhunting Asmat villagers – have persisted for more than forty years," she wrote in her memoir, When Grief Calls Forth the Healing: A Memoir of Losing a Twin.

"All the evidence, based on the strong offshore currents, the high seasonal tides, and the turbulent outgoing waters, as well as the calculations that Michael was approximately ten miles from shore when he began to swim, supports the prevailing theory that he drowned before he was able to reach land."

The child star, best known for his work in Touched by an Angel, Music From Another Room, Varsity Blues, and Beethoven's 3rd, was preparing to return to acting and move to Los Angeles before he went missing in his hometown of Bremerton, Washington, on January 5, 2006.

He was 18 at the time and was renting a place near his childhood home thanks to the money he made as a child actor. On the day of his disappearance, he cried on the phone to a friend in the early hours of the morning, and told them he would call back in an hour.

Joe never called his friend back, and his family went to check on him, only to find his home empty. Authorities spent days looking for him before they found his car parked at an intersection in the area, with a note left inside. 

The note expressed that he wished he had been a better big brother, and that he was leaving his possessions to his sibling.

Authorities believed he had died by suicide, but Joe's family refuted this idea, claiming he had never had poor mental health.

"Joseph is not a runaway; that's the only thing I know for sure about his disappearance," his mother, Kathy Pichler, wrote for the Surviving Parents Coalition in 2011.

"After nearly six years, we still have no resolution. Since Joseph's disappearance, my focus has been to help raise awareness of our nation's epidemic. I also struggle to get through each day without answers as to the whereabouts of my missing son." Joe was never found, and the case remains unsolved.