Sarm Heslop and the missing hour
A dock camera shows the couple leaving shore at 8:45 p.m. on a ten-minute trip. One account of the night has them reaching the yacht around ten.
- When
- Night of March 7–8, 2021
- Where
- Frank Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
- Status
- Unsolved
Content note missing person, domestic violence allegation. No graphic images.
In brief
On the evening of March 7, 2021, Sarm Heslop, a 41-year-old former flight attendant from Southampton, England, went ashore on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands with her boyfriend, Ryan Bane, owner of the catamaran Siren Song, where she worked as the cook. A dock camera recorded the two of them leaving by dinghy at 8:45 p.m. on a trip that takes five to ten minutes. Some Coast Guard records have Bane saying they returned around 10 p.m. Early the next morning he reported that an anchor alarm had woken him and Sarm was gone, though her phone, wallet and passport were still aboard. He reported it to police at 2:34 a.m. but the Coast Guard was not contacted until 11:46 a.m. The boat was never forensically searched. Five weeks later Bane sailed it out of U.S. waters. Police call him their only person of interest. He has never been charged, denies any involvement, and his lawyer says there is no evidence he harmed her. Sarm has never been found.
Turning pointWhen the BBC obtained the dock footage in 2025, police confirmed the 8:45 p.m. timestamp. Set against Bane's account of returning around ten, it opened a gap of nearly an hour.
- Missing
- Sarm Heslop, 41, former flight attendant and yacht cook, from Southampton, England
- Last seen on camera
- 8:45 p.m., March 7, 2021, leaving the dock by dinghy with Ryan Bane
- The trip
- Five to ten minutes to Siren Song, anchored in Frank Bay
- Reported to police
- 2:34 a.m., March 8
- Coast Guard told
- 11:46 a.m., about nine hours later
- The boat
- Never forensically searched; sailed out of the U.S. Virgin Islands five weeks later
Watch the episode
Timeline
2019
Sarm leaves the UK to sail the Atlantic as crew. In St. John she meets Ryan Bane and becomes the cook aboard his 47-foot catamaran, Siren Song.
March 7, 2021Evening
Sarm and Bane go ashore for dinner and drinks. Siren Song is anchored in Frank Bay.
March 7, 20218:45 p.m.
A dock camera records the two of them boarding their dinghy and heading out. The trip to the yacht takes five to ten minutes. It is the last independent record of Sarm.
March 7, 2021About 10:00 p.m.
Bane's account to the Coast Guard, as recorded in some reports, puts their return to the yacht around this time. His lawyer says he may have misjudged the time under stress.
March 8, 2021About 2:00–2:44 a.m.
Bane says an anchor alarm woke him and Sarm was gone. Her phone, wallet and passport are aboard. He contacts police at 2:34 and gives a statement ashore at 2:44. Police say they told him to call the Coast Guard.
March 8, 202111:46 a.m.
The Coast Guard is notified, about nine hours after police. A search by air and sea follows. Bane's lawyer says Bane understood police would make the call.
March 2021
On his lawyer's advice, Bane declines a police search of Siren Song. The Coast Guard carries out only a safety sweep.
April 2021
Five weeks after Sarm disappears, Bane sails Siren Song out of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The boat is later offered for sale.
March 2022
Sarm's parents travel to the U.S. Virgin Islands to press for answers.
September 2025
The BBC releases the dock footage in the documentary Missing in Paradise: Searching for Sarm. Police Commissioner Mario Brooks calls the timeline suspicious and Bane the only person of interest.
The full story
A ten-minute trip
Sarm Heslop had loved boats since she was a child. A former flight attendant from Southampton, she left England in 2019 to sail the Atlantic and ended up in St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, cooking aboard Siren Song, a 47-foot catamaran owned by her American boyfriend, Ryan Bane.
On the evening of March 7, 2021, the two of them went ashore for dinner and drinks. At 8:45 p.m., a dock camera filmed them climbing into their dinghy and heading back out across the dark water to the boat, anchored in Frank Bay. That trip takes five to ten minutes. It is the last time anyone outside the boat recorded seeing Sarm.
The night
Bane later said an anchor alarm woke him in the early hours and Sarm was gone. Her phone, wallet and passport were still aboard. He contacted police at 2:34 a.m. and gave a statement ashore ten minutes later. Police say they told him to alert the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard heard from him at 11:46 that morning. By the time a search began, Sarm had been missing for roughly half a day. A Coast Guard commander later said that in a person-in-the-water case, minutes count.
Some Coast Guard records have Bane saying they got back to the boat around ten. Set against the 8:45 departure, that leaves nearly an hour unaccounted for. His lawyer says Bane may simply have got the time wrong in a stressful moment.
The boat
Police asked to search Siren Song. On his lawyer’s advice, Bane declined, and the boat was never forensically examined. Five weeks later he sailed it out of U.S. jurisdiction, and it was later offered for sale. In 2025 the BBC obtained the dock footage for a documentary, and the territory’s police commissioner called the timeline suspicious and Bane the only person of interest.
Still missing
Bane has never been charged. He denies harming Sarm, and his lawyer says there is no evidence he did. Her family wants the case investigated as a murder without a body. More than five years on, Sarm is still missing, and so is the hour.
What the video couldn't include
Why the boat was never searched
Bane invoked his constitutional rights and declined a search. Virgin Islands authorities have said they lacked grounds for a warrant. A former Metropolitan Police homicide commander working for the family told the BBC that in a comparable UK case an arrest would have been made within hours.
Bane's account
Through his lawyer, Bane has said Sarm returned to the yacht with him that night, that he does not know where she is, and that she may have fallen overboard or drowned while swimming. In a 2025 statement he denied harming her.
His past
In 2011, Bane was arrested in Wisconsin after his then-wife reported domestic violence, and he served a short jail sentence. She described the abuse to the BBC in 2025. Bane has not been charged with anything connected to Sarm.
The refrigerator
A private investigator working for the family said in 2024 that parts of the boat's forward cabin, including a refrigerator, had been replaced in Grenada. Virgin Islands Police said the refrigerator was not part of a criminal investigation, and Bane's lawyer denies any wrongdoing.
A dead end
In 2025, Virgin Islands police acknowledged the investigation had stalled. Sarm's family runs the Find Sarm campaign and keeps her phone number active.
The video and the record
The episode tells this case in about 3 minutes with illustrated recreations. Here is how its key moments line up with what is documented.
At eight forty-five that night, a camera caught Sarm Heslop leaving shore with her boyfriend
Documented
Dock footage released in the 2025 BBC documentary. Police verified the timestamp.
Some Coast Guard reports record Bane saying they returned around ten
Documented
The phrasing is deliberate: the timing comes from records of his account, and his lawyer says he may have misjudged it.
The Coast Guard did not hear from him until eleven forty-six that morning
Documented
Police logged his report at 2:34 a.m. Police say they told him to call the Coast Guard; his lawyer says he believed police would.
Police have called Bane their only person of interest, but he has never been charged
Documented
Commissioner Mario Brooks to the BBC, 2025. Bane denies involvement.
The dinghy crossing into darkness, the catamaran at anchor, the search
Reconstruction
AI-generated illustrations. The dock CCTV and photographs of Sarm are not reproduced.
What the four marks mean
- Documented
- Shown as it is recorded in court filings, police statements, or consistent reporting.
- Reconstruction
- A reasonable visual recreation of a documented event. The event happened; the image is illustrative.
- Compressed
- Real events shortened, merged, or reordered to fit the runtime.
- Dramatized
- A storytelling choice (framing, wording, emphasis) that the record does not establish.
Sources
- [1]BBC News“Mystery of British woman who disappeared from a luxury Caribbean yacht”BBC InDepth reporting accompanying the documentary Missing in Paradise: Searching for Sarm.
- [2]BBC News“Missing Sarm Heslop: Parents arrive on US Virgin Islands”
- [3]BBC News“Missing Sarm Heslop: Parents head to Caribbean for answers”
- [4]WikipediaDisappearance of Sarm Heslop
SourcedFacts in this file come from the reporting listed above. Some details are still waiting on primary records. Last reviewed October 6, 2026. How we check cases
