A banker from New York who passed away under mysterious circumstances Spain made a frantic last phone call to his loved ones moments before disappearing.
Grant Barr, aged 37, vanished during his visit to Estepona, a well-loved coastal town in southern Spain, on January 28.
He felt drained, utterly spent due to his demanding position as a top executive in Manhattan, and he had also ended things with his girlfriend, according to what his family shared with Daily Mail.
Barr went to Europe to unwind and disconnect, yet ended up spiraling into a tragedy that his mourning family continues to struggle to understand.
On January 28 at around 3 PM, an odd telephone call to his sibling caused such concern for the family that they immediately boarded a flight.
Once they reached Spain, Grant was nowhere to be found.
It took almost three months, until April 4, for them to be informed about what actually occurred.
A body was retrieved from the water, and DNA confirmed it belonged to their son. The individual had been discovered a month prior, yet Spanish officials failed to identify him positively even though the family reported Grant as missing back in January.
Currently, they are seeking explanations from the European authorities.
James, who is 41 years old, mentions that the family has had to do most of the investigation work themselves.
Apart from hearing that his brother drowned, he remains clueless about what happened in those last moments.
"It was 3 PM locally, which would have been around 9 PM over there… He contacted me in distress. He told me, 'James—I’m in trouble. I require assistance—they’re pursuing me,'" James recounted from the January 28th telephone conversation.
'I was like, "who's after you?! Who?"' He said he was running through the woods... and I think that was the last time anyone spoke to him.'
James, who lives in New Jersey with the rest of the family, flew to Spain immediately.
Their parents joined him, and the search began.
They spoke with residents and walked the streets searching for information, yet found nothing.
On February 18, a resident approached with information about discovering Grant's passport, yet the authorities seemed unimpressed.
The police handled it more akin to a lost and found situation, which was when I first recognized that we were dealing with quite a distinct system and entirely different circumstances.
"I felt like there should have been some follow-up," James mentioned.
The family went back to Spain seeking explanations, yet they found themselves once more in the darkness of uncertainty.
As James and his mother covered great distances searching for him, his father stayed at the harbor, eager to spot his boy.
"He spent the entire day sitting there with his coffee, simply hoping to catch sight of Grant," he mentioned.
The circumstances of how Grant found himself in the water remain unclear.
A keen sailor, he was accustomed to the ocean and was a competent swimmer.
His brother fears he may have been caught in a rip tide, worsened by stormy weather.
Spanish police are yet to confirm exactly what happened. Grant's body has since been returned to his family for burial.
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