Sean Flynn, 28, son of famed actor Errol Flynn, and photojournalist Dana Stone, 30, were captured by communist guerrillas while on assignment in Cambodia on April 6, 1970. Flynn and Stone were freelance photojournalists who were covering the conflict in Cambodia. They had been in Phnom Penh when they left to cover a press conference in Saigon, Vietnam. They decided to ride motorcycles on the trip, forgoing the limousines that had been offered to members of the press corps. Reporter Steve Bell spoke with the pair before they left and they informed him they were headed to a Viet Cong checkpoint on Highway 1 where they hoped to get photographs of the communist Vietnamese fighters. Bell took a picture of the men before they departed. Flynn and Stone were never seen or heard from again.
Four other journalists were captured by the Viet Cong in Cambodia that day. By June 1970, 25 journalists had been captured and three of them killed. What happened to Flynn and Stone is unknown. It was confirmed they had been captured by the Viet Cong guerrillas, but it is unknown what happened after that. Their bodies were never recovered. In 1984, Flynn’s mother had him declared legally dead.