Man’s Body Back Home From Bogota Remains Held In Colombia Until Idaho Family Paid Bills

Rathdrum trucker Jack Baldwin’s extended stay in South America came to a close this week, when Colombian officials returned his remains to North Idaho.

Monday, the 68-year-old’s daughter, Lolita Nagrone, retrieved Baldwin’s ashes from her Post Falls post office box. Friday, mourners gathered for a memorial service, ending a monthlong struggle to retrieve Baldwin’s body.

“Having that kind of closure probably will help the family,” said Laurie Thomas, an aide to Sen. Larry Craig, who helped family members in their struggle.

“Once the funeral’s over, we can put it behind us,” Nagrone said Friday.

The family’s trials began after Jack Baldwin flew to Bogota, Colombia in October to meet his fifth wife - a 35-year-old Colombian woman, Baldwin’s summer pen pal.

The pair were married in Venezuela within a week. But, according to family members, Baldwin’s new wife immediately began bleeding him of cash.

Baldwin checked into a Colombian hospital with heart trouble three weeks later. He died Nov. 18 after two major heart surgeries.

Baldwin’s new wife took off with his bags, his clothes, his boots, his plane tickets. With Baldwin’s body she left a watch, his passport and an empty wallet.

Doctors, meanwhile, refused to release his body until the medical bills were paid.

“Unfortunately it’s very typical,” said Thomas. Since Medicare and Medicaid don’t cover U.S. citizens in foreign countries, human remains often serve as collateral.

U.S. officials checked the legality, but “they (foreign governments), in fact, can do that,” she said.

Before Baldwin’s death, Craig’s office helped son Troy Baldwin, 29, get a passport during last month’s U.S. government shutdown. He took $2,000 and arrived at his father’s bedside.

U.S. ambassadors ran interference for the younger Baldwin and helped translate discussions with authorities. Nagrone mortgaged her trailer to pay $5,800 for Jack Baldwin’s medical bills and borrowed another $1,200 for Friday’s funeral service.

“He should never have gone over there in the first place,” Delbert Baldwin, Jack’s brother, said before Friday’s services. “But at least he was doing what he wanted to do.”

This week, Nagrone and the other Baldwins have finally begun to relax.

Craig’s office will help her translate the death certificate from Spanish to English, she said. She will keep Baldwin’s remains until next summer.

Then, an Alaskan friend who owns a plane will fly over Bear Gulch near Murray, Idaho, in the Silver Valley. Family members will sprinkle Baldwin’s ashes over his old homesite and a place he used to fish, hunt and dig for gold.

“This is where he belongs,” Delbert Baldwin said.

“It’s all over but the crying,” said a misty-eyed Troy Baldwin, 29.

, DataTimes