PESACH WITHOUT DANA RISHPY

Family says search will last ‘as long as it takes’
By LISE OLSEN HOUSTON CHRONICLE
April 9, 2009, 10:56PM

Billy Smith II Chronicle
Dror and Dania Rishpy hold a photo of their daughter, Dana, 24, who disappeared two years ago in Mexico.

An Israeli couple said Thursday they plan to stay in the Houston area for “as long as it takes” to find a family who may have information about their daughter, who disappeared two years ago in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Dania and Dror Rishpy, who have already traveled to Mexico and California, said they are hoping to find a family from Willowbrook who just might have been the last people to see their daughter, 24-year-old Dana, alive.

The couple is looking for a family who rescued a woman closely resembling their daughter, after finding a bikini-clad woman unconscious and covered with sand in a roadway in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, in April 2007. The family took her to beachside restaurant called “La Ruina” and gave the woman ice and water but she never opened her eyes.
After three hours, Mexican police turned the unconscious woman over to a man who claimed to be her boyfriend, another tourist told the Rishpys.

“We don’t want anything from them, we just want to thank them for the help they gave to our daughter: They picked up our daughter from the road,” Dania Rishpy said Thursday.
The Rishpys, from Haifa Israel, decided to travel here after meeting in Mexico in March with that tourist, a Mexican who says she also was visiting Playa del Carmen in 2007. She told the Rishpys she saw a tall pale girl with waist-long curly brown hair.
The pair arrived here on Sunday and met with Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Israeli Consulate officials.

The Rishpys are looking for a family, including a mother, father, two daughters and two sons, whose cruise ship docked in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, on April 4 or 5, 2007. The children were in their teens or early 20s. The family’s youngest son was 14 or 15 in 2007 and may have Down syndrome. The family is believed to live in the Willowbrook area.
Anyone with information should call the Harris County Sheriff’s Office’s missing person line at 713-755-7427.
lise.olsen@chron.com