OTTAWA — A young woman who witnessed her father’s murder onboard his boat in Central America was returning home on Sunday.
Myda Egrmajer’s cousin said the 24-year-old woman was travelling from Belize to her mother’s home in northern Ontario.
Other family members were gathering there to await her return, Marian Hester said. The small family and community are shaken, she said.
“It’s a little surreal,” she said.
Myda had been visiting her father Milan on his boat in Honduras when they hit bad weather on Thursday and docked at a remote lagoon called El Diamante, which is known to boaters in the area as a place to overnight.
It’s not clear what unfolded next, but Milan Egrmajer’s body was found inside the boat by authorities on Friday.
Honduran authorities said his body had four bullet wounds to the chest and abdomen.
Honduran media were reporting Sunday that Myda was hidden from view as four men stormed the boat and robbed her father at gunpoint.
But Hester says the story of how she escaped is Myda’s alone to tell.
“She is a fighter, obviously,” said Hester.
“So is Milan.”
Hester said Milan was a vivacious, intelligent man who loved his family.
On a website where he was chronicling his trip, Milan said that to him, water was a magnet.
“It is this magnetism that has spurned this sailing adventure,” he wrote.
“Trying to find out what lies beyond that horizon?”