The father of one of the two Florida teens who went missing last summer while on a fishing trip said that his son was “very responsible” in an interview with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The Palm Beach Post reported this week that Blu Stephanos told investigators last September that his son Austin was told he could go “a couple of miles offshore on a calm day.” The FWC recently released a recording of Blu’s interview.
Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, both 14, disappeared in July 2015 amid a storm off Jupiter, Fla., but Blu said that his son had been “driving a boat since he was 10 years old.”
“It’s not like we just gave him keys to a boat. He commonly went offshore on calm days. He was not allowed to go to the Bahamas,” he said, per the Post.
The teens’ capsized 19-foot boat was found 100 miles from the Bahamas by a Norwegian cargo ship earlier this year. This month, the boat was delivered to a port in Florida.
Blu Stephanos also got a text from his son on the day the boys disappeared.
“What’s Up? I’m checking in. I’m just out here fishing,” it read, reported CBS12. That was the last time he heard from his son.
He also said that his son was excellent with boats and could even repair them, to an extent.
