Missing - Unsolved Mysteries: Hélder Cavaco

#Hélder Cavaco

Hélder Alexandre Ferro Pagarim Cavaco was a Portuguese young boy who mysteriously disappeared in the 1990’s.

Today, nobody knows where he is. If he’s dead or alive, and if he was kidnapped or not.

Image Credit: Aaron Burden from Unsplash

Introduction

In the past week, I had an interesting thought about going to see who is currently missing in Portugal, and the first person that caught my eye was Hélder. As we are, Hélder was just a teenager living his life, but he suddenly disappeared, not leaving any clues behind, just little thoughts and theories. I never knew about the case before, and because it is really old, I would like to approach it very kindly, because this is a very sensitive topic.

In this magazine, I have never seen an article with this subject, and I think it is really important to talk about this situations, specially when it is connected with you somehow, so I am interested on doing a serie of articles about missing people, especially in my country, Portugal. Fortunately, there are not much missing cases in Portugal, and the most people that still are on that page disappeared years, even decades ago.

I connected instantly with this boy because seeing his photo, his name, and details the police provided, seemed really curious, and strange. I am still hopeful of getting new informations and discovering later new proofs and clues that can lead to a possible answer.

Most of his friends don’t seem to really talk about him, and it makes me curious if this boy was just on the wrong place at a wrong time, or if it has more than it shows.

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His Life and Story

Hélder was a 16 year-old teenager born in 13th July, 1973. He was known for being a normal teenager, who lived in Santiago do Cacém, and in one sunday morning, at 8 o'clock, (January 28th 1990), left home to meet a friend in the beach, that would sell him a surfboard. His mother was concerned for him, because the weather was not nice at the time, but he left anyways.

He left home with blue jeans and a blue leather coat, and he was wearing a blue backpack with yellow and red strings on it. One thing very particular is the scar he had on the right eye.

The distance between his home and the beach he was going to was aproximately of 15Km, or 3,20 miles. He left with no money, documents or food. People believe he asked for a ride to go to that beach, but nothing is proved.

Later on, a man told the authorities that he took Hélder to the beach, and left him near a local restaurant. This was the last time anyone saw Hélder, and the friends who came to the beach later to meet him didn't find him there.

This is a case that is really suspicious, and raises many questions, like the money thing. If he told his mom he was going to buy a surfboard, why did he left the house with no money?

The authorities started investigating the case, but didn't find anything to really blame someone or arrest someone. In the 1990's, the investigations were really archaic and left many questions to solve. The fact that, at the time, the DNA was not a thing at the time, so the investigations led to nowhere and no concrete clues.

The mother told the police at the time she was receiving lots of unknown and strange calls after his disappearance, where she could hear breathing sounds and background noises, and in one of those calls, she told that someone ordered other to hang up the call, which I think it is very weird. Despite telling the police, nothing was done to explore that.

Years have passed, and nothing was done. People ocasionally told the police they had seen him on the street, but nothing was confirmed.

One error I found crucial for the unsolved case was the fact that, after his disappearance, the family wanted to report his missing, but the authorities denied it and obligated the family to wait a few more days. That few more days were crucial to find evidence and clues, but nothing was done.

Image Credit: Timon Reinhard from Unsplash

Popular Opinions

If he is alive, he is 52 years, but unfortunately, the chances of him being alive are little.

His sister later told he was not dressed apropriately to go surfing, so she believes he didn't go to the sea. She believes Hélder saw something he wasn't supposed to have seen, and that's why he went missing.

In this article, I found really good opinions about his case on Reddit.

Conclusion

To end this article, I give you local opinions I found. This opinions are transformed and were not copy -pasted.

PS: Please be kind with this type of cases. Despite nowadays, missing people cases are banalyzed and normalised, and treated like a simple documentary, we are talking about real people, with feelings, and who lost a family member.

1) Why would the kidnapper let him call home, specially several times, and why would he have to call without satying absolutely anything?

2) He didn't bring surf clothes, so he certainly was not interested in trying out the board anyway. There are not any confirmation that the friend had a board with him to give to Hélder. Nobody arrived with the surfboard.

3) Another possibility is that he fled after being promised some kind of enrichment. Something related to drugs, and in the meantime he was killed.

4) An accidental death witnessed by friends who may have later disposed of the body should not be ruled out.

5) He was kidnapped by someone. It was an industrial area with many truck drivers, and, according to locals, those were not the safest times.

6) He may have been with his friend, received the surfboard and then on the way back was robbed or kidnapped and they disposed of the body.

7) Disagreement over money. If he was going to the beach to by a surfboard, maybe he was robbed, or ge didn't receive the things he wanted, leading to a possible discussion and then something happened.

If you have any clues related to this case, please contact the nearest Police Station or report to their website.