The Three Recent Photos of David SneddonFinding David Sneddon
The Three Recent Photos of David Sneddon
David and George stayed in Yangshuo for two days. They rented bicycles and took day trips south and north of Yangshuo. On these two days, George took several photos of David. These photos were on the undeveloped film that was found in David's backpack. We used these photos during our search for David. This means that the photos we used in our search were taken only a week before David's disappearance from Shangri-La on August 14th. Multiple people recognized and positively identified David from looking at these photos.
George Bailey took this photo of David Sneddon on August 7th as the two headed south out of Yangshuo on bikes.
George reports: "We biked past some irrigation pipes. David said that [his] father would be interested in seeing the irrigation systems in China and took a picture of those pipes in the background." David's father, Roy Sneddon, has a Ph.D in Civil Engineering, so David thought that he would be interested in seeing the work of Chinese engineers. The fact that David asked George to take this picture is further evidence that David planned to return home to share this picture with his father.
George Bailey took this second photo of David Sneddon on August 8th.1
George reports: "David and I biked north from Yangshuo up in the direction of Guilin on Sunday [August 8]. We reached a little village and took a bamboo raft (this is what the picture is of) back down the river along which we biked. We only took the raft part of the way back down. I'm almost certain the second picture is our continuation of biking back down to Yangshuo on the same date." 2
In this photo, you can see David's hairline, which clearly shows the "widows peak" 3 as described by the two employees in Sean's guesthouse when they reported their interaction and sighting of David Sneddon. David never smiled enough to show his teeth because he is wearing braces. He had an appointment with his orthodontist in Colorado Springs on the morning of Monday, August 30, 2004 and intented to fly to Salt Lake City, Utah that afternoon.
The most recent photo we have was taken on August 8th, after the ride in the raft,
as David and George were bicycling back to Yangshuo. Note in the foreground David's "fanny pack", which he took with him when he left his large packpack in Qiaotou and started hiking up the "High Trail" of Tiger Leaping Gorge on August 11, 2004.
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1. The date time stamp of David's camera is clearly wrong.
2. M. Sneddon interview with G. Bailey on October 11, 2004.
3. A "widows peak" is a V-shaped point formed by the hair near the top of the human forehead.