Body of missing US teacher 'Monty-san' found in Japan

[The Straight Story]

Body of missing US teacher 'Monty-san' found in Japan



The body of a popular American teacher known as "Monty-san" has been found in the tiny coastal Japanese town where he worked, more than three weeks after the country was rocked by a powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami, his sister said Wednesday.

“We’ve got a big hole in our universe here,” said Shelley Fredrickson, a 44-year-old sales representative from Anchorage, Alaska, adding that the family was not accepting the confirmation of the death of her brother, Montgomery Dickson, officially until they travel to Japan, "for our own peace of mind."

The family received an email from the U.S. Consulate in Japan on Monday saying that police had recovered his body in the town of Rikuzentakata, said Gloria Shriver, Fredrickson's mother-in-law. Dickson's girlfriend, Naoko, then went to Rikuzentakata and identified his body.

The family knows little about the circumstances of Dickson's death. The last one to speak to the 26-year-old known as Monty was Naoko, whom he called after his students had evacuated from the school where he was teaching. Following evacuation procedure, Dickson -- a teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) -- then headed to the Board of Education office on the third floor at City Hall, which was believed to be a safe haven. Instead, it was overrun by the tsunami generated by the powerful earthquake that struck offshore.

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/06/6419977-body-of-missing-us-teacher-monty-san-found-in-japan