West Chester man goes missing in Bahamas

WEST CHESTER, Ohio - An international investigation is underway into the disappearance of a West Chester man in the Bahamas.

Nathaniel Wells’ family said he went on a cruise in the Bahamas with two friends on Friday.

Wells, 32, was last seen when he drove off on a jet ski he hired from a vendor on Cabbage Beach at around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, according to The (Nassau) Tribune .

Police told The Tribune that he arrived in Nassau on the Carnival Imagination Ship at around 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, and was reported missing at 10:30 p.m. after he did not return from the excursion from Paradise Island.

Wells' mother Diane Montgomery said the two friends that he was with in the Bahamas returned home Monday. Her son did not.

“We’re hanging in there… waiting. I just want him to come home,” she said of her son, who is a husband and a father to a 9-year-old daughter in West Chester.

The U.S. Embassy is keeping the family apprised of the investigation.

All Wells' mother can do is wait, pray and remember the son she calls 'Nate'.

"He's a good man—hardworking. Everybody liked him. He's a good father, a good husband. Everybody, everybody just loved him."

The U.S. Coast Guard did a shoreline search via helicopter at the Royal Bahamas Defense Force's request. However, the Coast Guard said that the Bahamian authorities are now investigating this case.

The family is planning a fundraiser and has set up an account at Huntington Bank to raise money for the family to travel to the Bahamas to assist in the search for Wells. The family said that the account is under the name: “Nathaniel Wells Benefit.”