American Couple Confirmed Dead In Italian Cruise Ship Disaster
MOUNT PROSPECT, Ill. (CBS) -- A Minnesota family with ties to the northwest suburbs has issued what it calls "the final update" on its blog - about their parents who died on the Costa Concordia cruise ship three months ago.
U.S. and Italian authorities have confirmed that the bodies of Gerald and Barbara Heil have been found.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Steve Miller reports
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The blog entry begins:
"Today we received confirmation that our parents, Gerald and Barbara Heil, have been positively identified as two of the five missing passengers recovered from the Costa Concordia several weeks ago. We will now be able to move forward and bring them home to rest."
The Heil family says, "The rescue and recovery crew on the island of Giglio have been relentless in their mission to find the missing and have given us hope through this whole process. We cannot thank them enough for continuing to risk their lives in an effort to find our parents."
The Heils are from the Minneapolis area, but a son lives in Mount Prospect.
Their daughter told WBBM Newsradio that her parents had always wanted to travel.
"They raised four kids and they sent them all to private school, so they never had any money," she said. "So when they retired, they went traveling."
