Police are investigating after an award-winning Irish documentary film maker and photographer went missing in New York.
Friends and colleagues of Dubliner Ross McDonnell have rallied to urge anyone who may have information to come forward.
Mr McDonnell (44), originally from Howth but living in Brooklyn, was last seen on November 4, while his bike was discovered locked to a stand at a beach in the borough of Queens three days later.
Friends described Mr McDonnell, a three-time Emmy award winner and cinematographer on the Loughinsland massacre documentary No Stone Unturned, as “an incredible human being” whose “disappearance has caused indescribable anguish amongst his friends and family”.
A missing person notice stated Mr McDonnell was last seen Saturday a week ago and that his bike was discovered on November 7 at the public beach at Fort Tilden on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. The area can be accessed from Brooklyn via the Marine Parkway Bridge.
He is described as 5 foot 9, of athletic build and with a distinctively Irish accent.
Gene Gallerano, a friend of Mr McDonnell, told The Irish Times it is believed he had been on the beach and “went out into the ocean” but had not been seen since.
“He was last seen last Saturday night. The alarm was sounded on Sunday, we don’t know much more than that,” he said. “It’s been a very, very emotionally heavy week.”
CCTV is believed to have captured Mr McDonnell on his bike on Sunday. He missed an appointment that evening and, after failing to turn up for work the following day, friends went to his apartment and broke down the door.
Family members then travelled from Ireland. The discovery of the bike at Fort Tilden beach on Tuesday focussed police attention on that area and a search was carried out, including of the nearby waters.
The missing person poster references his belongings with an assurance to anyone who may find them that they are “not in trouble if you picked” them up.
“We just want to locate ASAP for clues to his disappearance,” the poster stated.
The belongings include a red puffy North Face vest, black and white sneakers, dark coloured khaki pants as well as a black North Face backpack.
Anyone who may have the belongings in their possession or who may come across them is asked to drop them at FDNY Engine 329 where there will be “no questions asked”.
Mr McDonnell most recently completed a short film on Sharia courts in Afghanistan, Swift Justice. He previously spent some time working in Afghanistan during the long war.
He shared an Emmy for his cinematography on the 2021 film The First Wave, which followed the staff and patients of a New York hospital at the start of the Covid pandemic.
Mr McDonnell was director and cinematographer on the 2017 documentary Elián, about a Cuban boy at the centre of an international diplomatic incident with the United States.
He was cinematographer on No Stone Unturned, the investigation into the Loughinsland massacre. Both of the latter documentaries were produced by Belfast-based Finepoint Films.
