Husband says jet skiers saw missing North Carolina mom in Grenada

A separate boating incident at Grand Anse Beach on Aug. 8 left two people dead, drawing fresh attention to the same Grenadian shoreline where Elizabeth Waddell disappeared after going out for a swim. Cailen Waddell later said two jet skiers told him they saw and spoke with his wife offshore that afternoon, adding a disputed detail to the timeline around the 44-year-old Cary, North Carolina mother.

The Royal Grenada Police Force said Elizabeth Waddell was reported missing on July 22 while vacationing in Grenada and that she was last seen swimming near Grand Anse Beach. Authorities later released surveillance video that reportedly showed her in the water before she disappeared, but police said there was no video showing her returning from the water.

Cailen Waddell said he met with the jet skiers and heard a specific account: they said they encountered Liz roughly a third of a mile offshore on July 22, about 5:30 p.m. That would place the sighting more than four hours after she had disappeared from camera view, making it one of the most notable claims in the search timeline. In statements published July 29 and again Aug. 7, he said he believed "there was no foul play" in his wife's disappearance and later said drowning was the "most likely" explanation, though he said questions remained.

Friends and family said Elizabeth Waddell was on a girls' trip with a female friend when she vanished. Cailen Waddell traveled to the island to help search for her before the family later returned home, while Grenadian police kept tracing her movements in the hours before she disappeared and described the case as a missing person investigation.

The case has become a reminder of how quickly a family in North Carolina can be pulled into an overseas search anchored in local police work, beach surveillance and witness accounts that do not fully line up. For the Waddells, the key questions still turn on a narrow stretch of water off Grand Anse Beach and what happened between the last camera image and the reported jet-ski encounter.