The mystery death of the son of a legendary Hollywood star in Cambodia nearly solved

Sean Flynn (middle) and Dana Stone (right) set to cover a Cambodian war on the battlefield where they went missing in 1971.

Progress near on missing Vietnam War journalists

Wed Jun 22 2011
Arabian Standard Time,Oman Time

Vietnam (AFP): Military investigators could be a step nearer solving the mystery of Hollywood legend Errol Flynn's journalist son, who disappeared in Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The fate of war photographer Sean Flynn and his colleague Dana Stone has been unclear since they went missing in southeast Cambodia while covering the conflict in 1970.

A US official said Wednesday that investigators hoped talks with former North Vietnamese soldiers would lead to progress on the fate of two American journalists captured in the area, though he declined to name those involved.

"We're starting to get some witnesses that are talking about the capture of these journalists down there", Ron Ward, of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), told AFP.

"We're hopeful to have a breakthrough on that case."
In 1970 US-backed South Vietnamese forces crossed into Cambodia to attack North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong bases in the neighbouring country, where the communist Khmer Rouge were also operating.

Ward said it has always been unclear who exactly captured the journalists but JPAC investigators, working with counterparts in Vietnam, spoke over the past month with former North Vietnamese soldiers whose information may clarify what happened.
The case has been investigated many times over the years without progress, but a break seems closer now, Ward said.

"We're sifting through that information," he said, adding that more witnesses will need to be interviewed over the coming months.

But he said the witnesses have not spoken about remains.
Last year a JPAC lab in Hawaii concluded that remains handed over by two amateur Western diggers from Cambodia's eastern Kampong Cham province were not those of Flynn.

At least 37 journalists were killed or disappeared covering the 1970-75 conflict between the US-backed Lon Nol government and Khmer Rouge guerrillas supported by North Vietnamese fighters.