For the family of Nancy Ng, the nightmare began on Oct. 19, when the 29-year-old teacher’s aide from Monterey Park presumably drowned in Lake Atitlan in Guatemala during a yoga retreat.
For San Bernardino County Deputy Public Defender Christina Blazek — believed to be the last person to have seen Ng alive — the nightmare began about a month later. That’s when Ng’s family and one of its representatives publicly disclosed Blazek’s name and accused her of being silent and uncooperative in the search for Ng’s body, as well as hindering a Guatemalan police investigation.
The whiff of mystery about Ng’s last moments alive and allegations that Blazek and the retreat organizer had refused to talk to Ng’s family or authorities — possibly rising to the level of a criminal investigation — triggered sometimes wild speculation from TikTok sleuths and YouTubers, as well as widespread media coverage.
In turn, that prompted an onslaught of online hate-mongering, harassment, cyberstalking and death threats against Blazek from as far away as Europe, according to Blazek’s attorney, G. Christopher Gardner.
“A killer you are. You are a killer!” one anonymous caller said in a message left on Blazek’s personal cellphone on Nov. 15.
Another caller left a more ominous voice message on Blazek’s cellphone the following day: “Hi Christina! Where’s Nancy? Huh? Stop hiding the truth. Tell us, tell us now, otherwise we’re gonna come for you.”
“There’s been hundreds of them,” Gardner said.
Not only are the allegations about Blazek untrue, Gardner said, they are potentially slanderous and libelous. And as a result, she is being traumatized all over again, he said.
“I’m appalled at how irresponsible they were by letting her name out, on purpose,” Gardner said in a telephone interview. “What happens if something were to happen to Christina? Are they responsible for that? Everybody knows where they can find her, and that is 100% their fault.”
Statements given
Not only did Blazek give a statement to police at a Guatemalan police station following Ng’s reported drowning, Gardner said, but she also reached out to the FBI and gave a detailed statement to two agents at his office in downtown San Bernardino on Nov. 7, about a week prior to the public release of Blazek’s name and the name of retreat organizer Eduardo “Eddy” Rimada.
“The entire purpose for her voluntarily reaching out to the FBI and giving a statement was to assist with the investigation and make certain that investigators had all the information that Ms. Blazek had to give,” Gardner said. “So when she was subsequently accused of withholding information a week later, it simply was not true and it created a firestorm of unfair online criticism and harassment of Ms. Blazek.”
The FBI maintains it is not aware of any evidence of foul play, that witnesses have been cooperative with authorities, and that the agency is offering resources to the Guatemalan authorities to help in the search. Agency spokesperson Laura Eimiller said in an email Friday that the Ng family has been advised that the State Department is their current point of contact.
Second retreat
Ng, who worked as a behavioral interventionst aide at Garfield Elementary School in Alhambra, had been a yoga enthusiast for about four years, said her sister, Nicky Ng. Her trip to Guatemala for the “Be the Change” yoga retreat was her second in two years, according to her family.
As part of the retreat, about 10 attendees made the kayak excursion to Lake Atitlan, which has a depth of more than 1,100 feet and is considered one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. They set out shortly after 10:30 a.m., and one video circulated online shows Ng waving as she paddled out from shore.
Blazek’s account
According to Gardner, Blazek gave the following account of what happened to both Guatemalan police and the FBI:
As the wind picked up on Lake Atitlan and the water started getting choppy, Blazek began paddling her kayak back to shore. She crossed paths with Ng in the middle of the lake, where the water goes from light to dark, signifying the deepest part of the lake. The two began chatting and Ng said she wanted to go for a swim. Blazek, however, cautioned against it.
“She said, ‘You shouldn’t get in the water. It’s too rough out here. I’m not getting in the water,’” Gardner said. “Ms. Ng got in the water anyway.”
As Ng swam in the lake, without a life jacket, her kayak started drifting off in the current. So Blazek retrieved it and paddled it back to Ng, saying, “Here’s your kayak,” Gardner said.
Ng, however, kept swimming, Gardner said. Blazek, he said, then lost grip of Ng’s kayak, which started drifting off again in the current. So Blazek turned and went after it a second time, retrieving it, Gardner said.
But when Blazek turned around to paddle Ng’s kayak back to her a second time, she didn’t see Ng, who apparently became submerged, Gardner said.
“She realizes very quickly she couldn’t help her,” said Gardner, adding that Blazek would not go in the water herself due to the danger.
“She rushed back to shore as quickly as she could to say what happened. There are witnesses who said they heard my client, as she’s paddling back, screaming for help. She was visibly shaken, visibly upset, and she was escorted by people from the yoga group to get calmed down. She was taken to the police station in Guatemala, where she gave her statement.”
Early suspicions
After Blazek returned to the U.S., Nicky Ng says she sent her two emails to try to persuade her to talk to her family or searchers in hopes of obtaining any additional information.
In an Oct. 31 email, she told Blazek she found it suspicious she wouldn’t talk to her family regarding her sister’s disappearance, leaving them feeling that Blazek was “hiding something.”
“It has been nearly two weeks since our sister has gone missing and we are desperate to get the answers we need in order to find her,” said the email, which was signed by Nicky Ng and her brother, Jonathan Ng. “If you fail to cooperate, we will pursue this matter further.”
In a telephone interview with the Southern California News Group, Nicky Ng said that while she understands Blazek’s reluctance to speak to her family, she doesn’t understand why she has been unwilling to speak to the professional searchers they hired to try to find her sister’s body.
Nicky Ng said she also found it suspicious that the statement Blazek reportedly gave to Guatemalan police is, according to her, not in the case file. She said her family obtained a complete copy of the file from Guatemalan authorities through an attorney her family retained in Guatemala.
“I do have all the files from the police station as well as the prosecutor’s, and there is no record of Christina’s statement in there,” Nicky Ng said, adding that a Guatemalan prosecutor assigned to the case sent a request to the U.S. embassy in December for international assistance to obtain Blazek’s and Rimada’s statements.
Gardner said he has “absolutely no idea about the professionalism of Guatemalan police officers.”
“If that’s true, I would really think that the Guatemalan authorities would be reaching out to us to talk to them,” Gardner said. “If the Guatemalan authorities or the FBI, on behalf of Guatemalan authorities, think there’s information missing, they should contact me. I think it’s untrue and a bunch of nonsense.”
He said he has remained in contact with the FBI, and the only thing agents have followed up with him on is the status of death threats made against Blazek.
Public pressure
Nicky Ng was remorseful upon hearing of the death threats made against Blazek.
“It makes me really sad to hear about death threats. I feel awful. That’s the last thing I want for Christina,” Nicky Ng said during her telephone interview. “But the only way we can get answers is through public pressure.
“We did give her chances. We emailed her twice without response. We had other students from the retreat reach out to her, but she said she didn’t owe the family anything,” Ng said.
Some of the early suspicion about Blazek came from Chris Sharpe, owner of Black Wolf Helicopters Special Operations Aviation & Training in Guatemala City.
Sharpe, hired by the family to search for Ng’s body, put out a news release Nov. 13 identifying Blazek and retreat coordinator Rimada. The news release said the two were “persons of interest” in a criminal case and, as of that date, had “not been forthcoming with Guatemalan authorities.”
The press release, posted on Black Wolf Helicopters’ Instagram page, generated several comments calling for Blazek’s disbarment.
Rimada could not be reached for comment.
In an interview conducted online Friday, Sharpe said he stands by the news release, saying it was part of an ongoing “appeal for witnesses.” He said that if Blazek had stayed in Guatemala longer and assisted in the search, it might have made a difference.
Asked if disclosing the names of Blazek and Rimada nearly a month after Ng’s drowning would have helped in the search for the body, Sharpe acknowledged it would not have. As for whether he thought publicly releasing their names was fair, Sharpe said: “Absolutely, without question. I’d do it again tomorrow.”
Sharpe said his company released their names to prod them to cooperate because, after a month of searching for Ng’s body, his team had no idea where to look. And though Gardner said Blazek told Guatemalan police where Ng disappeared in the lake, Sharpe said neither he nor the Ng family had any record of Blazek’s account to authorities.
“If you look at the bay, it’s like the size of a Super Bowl stadium. It’s like, ‘Are we going left or are we going right?’ ” Sharpe said. “We absolutely knew nothing about where she went missing.”
Meanwhile, Gardner said Blazek continues to suffer for no reason.
“There’s a difference between suffering a loss and being a victim,” Gardner said. “The Ng family has suffered a tragic loss. But my client is a victim, and it needs to stop.”
