Missing man Patrick McDermott was on Olivia Newton-John's payroll

Still no proof-of-life photo of Olivia Newton-John's missing boyfriend Patrick Kim McDermott, but Tabloid Baby pal Dylan Howard, the international investigative reporter who’s broken a lot of news in the case that we kept alive, has new details from the official Coast Guard report into his disappearance at sea five years ago-- including the fact that McDermott was on the singer’s payroll.

Among the other new information that was published in Australia's New Idea magazine and around the world:

* McDermott purchased a .357 magnum three months before he disappeared

* Someone tried to access his computer between the time he vanished and when it was seized;

* A file from his computer contained information on how to fake an identity;

* He attempted suicide by pills at 17;

* He was drowning in debt and failing to meet child support;

* He had $755.01 in savings and $19,004.56 in credit card debt and was $8,000 behind in child support payments;

* He'd destroyed all his emails, including correspondence from Newtown-John;

* Started a company called Twice Alive Productions in 2003.


The investigation focuses on McDermott's nine-year relationship with the Newton-John, who never reported him missing after he vanished from a fishing boat on June 30, 2005. Newton-John failed to alert the media, whoch could have helped in a missing persons search, and it was seven weeks before a reporter noticed the name and Newton-John connection and broke the news.

Was Newton-John aware of his scheme? The report says she told investigators she wasn't aware of McDermott's financial straits, and that the last time she saw him was in mid-June, before she left on a trip to Australia (where she was when he disappeared). She said he'd come to her home to end their on-off relationship once again.

The report notes "official sightings" of McDermott in Malibu, Long Beach and San Luis Obispo, California, Calgary Canada, and Todos Santo, La Paz, Sayulita and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The report says the US Coast Guard has labelled the McDermott probe a "deadbeat parent” case, which means the US State Department “remains on the lookout, but not actively searching for someone who has absconded from life’s responsibilities.”

Last month, a private eye working for NBC's tabloid show Dateline claimed to have "proof" that McDermott is alive and well in Baja Mexico (the destination of his fishing charter), but asked everyone to take his word for it until he writes a book.

Shocking details behind the message from Olivia Newton-John's missing boyfriend Patrick McDermott

There’s a book's worth of shocking, jaw-dropping, facade-smashing evidence and allegations behind today's claim from a private eye that friends of Olivia Newton-John’s missing ex-boyfriend Patrick McDermott have reached out to say he’s alive and well in Mexico-- and wants to be left alone.

Reporter Dylan Howard, who broke the story in today's edition of The News of The World, has a far more detailed article in the new issue of Australia’s Woman’s Day magazine that contradicts much of the official version coming from newton-John's camp over the past four years and adds new detail to the story Tabloid Baby has kept alive from the day McDermott's disappearance was announced-- when our contributors were in San Pedro, California to hear a Coast Guard spokesman tell us the case was “still open.”


Howard's article, based on unseen Coast Guard interviews and other reportage, disputes two major assertions made by Newton-John's camp-- that the singer had been in Australia when McDermott vanished-- and that their relationship had broken off weeks, perhaps months earlier.

Howard contends that McDermott, who did not live with Newton-John after nine-years, visited her at her Malibu compound 24 to 72 hours before he vanished to break up the relationship. After leaving Newton-John “huddled on the couch, crying,” he returned to give his keys to the singer's personal assistant, saying, “It's too tumultuous around here.”

The article quotes private eye Philip Klein as saying he has evidence McDermott had been planning his getaway for as long as six months, and that he'd taken at least six fishing trips on the Freedom charter boat, in effect “casing" it before disappearing from it.

The article also places suspicion on McDermott's estranged wife, the actress Yvette Nipur, who allegedly made a claim on his $250,000 insurance policy 90 days after his disappearance, while striking up a close friendship with Newton-John-- “with Olivia as ambassador for Yvette's t-shirt line Be So Do So."

A scan of Tabloid Baby's archives will show there have been reported sightings of McDermott and many unanswered questions in the four years since his disappearance. The coming weeks will be crucial.

First posting on the Tabloid Baby blogsite: