Medellín officials said an autopsy was pending Friday after the discovery in a rural area southwest of the city.
MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA — Colombian officials said Friday that a body believed to be that of missing American Airlines flight attendant Eric Fernando Gutiérrez Molina was found in a rural area near Medellín, five days after he disappeared during an overnight crew layover in the city.
The discovery brought a grim turn to a case that had drawn attention in Colombia and the United States after the 32-year-old Dallas-based crew member failed to report for his return flight to Miami. Medellín authorities said forensic officials must still confirm the body’s identity, but Mayor Federico Gutiérrez said there was a very high probability it was Gutiérrez Molina. The case remains under investigation as officials try to determine how he died, who was with him in his final hours and whether he was the victim of a crime.
Authorities said Gutiérrez Molina arrived in Medellín on Saturday, March 21, as part of a flight crew on a route from Miami. After the crew checked in for a short layover, he went out that night in El Poblado, a neighborhood known for bars, clubs and tourism. Security Secretary Manuel Villa Mejía said the flight attendant was last seen early Sunday after leaving a club and moving to another location with others. Family members and friends said he had been out with a female co-worker and had planned to work the return flight the next morning. When he did not arrive for duty on Sunday, alarm spread quickly among relatives in Texas and co-workers who knew he would not normally miss a departure without explanation. His loved ones said his last communications suggested an ordinary crew night out had turned into something far more serious.
By Friday afternoon, the search had shifted from hotels, nightlife areas and cellphone records to a rural zone between the municipalities of Jericó and Puente Iglesias, southwest of Medellín. Officials said the body was recovered there and taken to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Medellín for identification. Mayor Gutiérrez said he had spoken with the flight attendant’s father and informed U.S. diplomatic officials. “There is a very high probability that this body belongs to this individual,” the mayor said in Spanish, offering condolences to the family and friends. Until the autopsy is completed, investigators have not publicly declared the identification final. They also have not announced a cause of death. That leaves major questions unresolved, including when Gutiérrez Molina left the city, whether he was transported against his will and what evidence may connect the body recovery site to the places where he was last seen.
The investigation had already raised concern because of what officials said about the people around him before he vanished. Villa Mejía said investigators identified the people last seen with Gutiérrez Molina and found that they had a history of thefts involving scopolamine, a drug often called “devil’s breath” in Colombia. Authorities said they had identified phones and vehicles linked to those suspects, but they did not release names or say publicly whether anyone had been arrested by Friday night. Family friends said the female co-worker who had been with Gutiérrez Molina returned to the hotel disoriented and had gaps in her memory. Loved ones told reporters they believed she, too, may have been drugged. Colombian officials said they were investigating that possibility. American Airlines said it was actively engaged with local law enforcement and was doing all it could to support its employee’s family. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants also said it was supporting efforts tied to the case.
The case drew extra attention because it touched on a wider safety issue that has shadowed nightlife districts in major Colombian cities for years. U.S. officials and local authorities have warned travelers about scopolamine-related robberies in places including Medellín, Cartagena and Bogotá. The drug can leave victims confused, sedated and unable to remember what happened, making it difficult for investigators to reconstruct events. In Gutiérrez Molina’s case, relatives said his phone appeared to ping from locations that were not near his hotel, adding to fears that he had been moved after the night out. One report placed a location signal near an Airbnb in El Poblado; another report said authorities were reviewing activity tied to a residential area in La América. Those details helped form a rough timeline, but they did not explain how he could have ended up in a rural area miles away. For investigators, that gap in the record now appears central.
Friends and family had spent the week trying to keep attention on the search while coping with a fast-changing and often confusing stream of information. Ernesto Carranza, Gutiérrez Molina’s longtime partner, said the uncertainty had left him devastated. Sharom Gil, a close friend, described him as a joyful person whose absence felt unreal. Those comments became part of the public portrait of a crew member whose disappearance had quickly crossed borders, drawing in Medellín police, city security officials, airline representatives and U.S. consular officials. Gutiérrez Molina’s father traveled from Texas to Colombia to help the search and coordinate with authorities. Medellín officials said from the start that the case was a top priority and that the protocol for missing persons had been activated immediately. That official urgency reflected both the seriousness of the disappearance and the fact that a foreign airline worker had vanished during a brief work stop in one of Colombia’s busiest cities.
The legal and procedural steps now move to forensic work and possible criminal action. Officials said the autopsy would be used to confirm identity and help determine whether Gutiérrez Molina died from overdose, trauma, strangulation or another cause. Investigators are also expected to continue reviewing surveillance video, phone records, vehicle movements and witness interviews from the clubs and other locations tied to his final hours. If the body is formally identified, authorities would then need to map the chain of events from El Poblado to the recovery site and decide whether charges such as homicide, kidnapping or robbery apply. By Friday, authorities had not announced court proceedings, named suspects in public or set a date for arrests. The lack of formal charges does not mean the inquiry has slowed. Instead, it suggests the case has reached the stage where forensic evidence may carry unusual weight in explaining both motive and method.
Even with the body discovery, much about the case remains painfully human and unfinished. The image shared by relatives in interviews was not of a headline figure but of a son, partner, friend and working airline employee who expected to finish a layover and fly home. His final known night began in one of Medellín’s most visible entertainment districts, a place crowded with visitors and workers, and appears to have ended far from the city center in countryside that few would connect to a routine crew stop. That contrast has sharpened public concern in both Colombia and Texas. It also explains why the case moved quickly from a missing-person search to a broader examination of nightlife crime, crew safety and the risks tied to drug-facilitated theft. For the family, however, the broader issues remain secondary to one immediate need: a clear account of what happened in the hours between a night out and a body found in the hills.
The case stood Friday night at a painful midpoint: officials said the body was likely Gutiérrez Molina’s, but final identification and the cause of death were still pending. The next milestone is the forensic report in Medellín, which is expected to guide the direction of any arrests or criminal charges.
Author note: Last updated March 27, 2026.