The Robert Allenby Mystery Grows Stranger by the Day

As the sun began to set over Honolulu, three men walked into a wine bar to blow off some steam following a tough day at the office. Two would return home safely, while the other would arrive back at his hotel bloodied, broke and disoriented…and boy did he have a tale to tell.

Couldn’t you just see Keith Morrison opening up an episode of Dateline with a similar statement?

Right from the start, Robert Allenby’s tale of kidnapping and robbery following a night on the town in Honolulu, while certainly plausible, seemed almost too incredible to believe.

Within the Australian Associated Press’ (via SportsFan.com) initial report on the incident, Allenby said that he thought he may have been drugged at the Amuse Wine Bar on the evening of January 16, 2015, before being beaten up, robbed and dumped in a park six miles away.

Allenby told the APP that:

"

I was separated from my friend in the bar after we had paid the tab at 10:48pm and he went to the bathroom and next thing you know I'm being dumped in a park miles away.

I only know this part because a homeless woman found me and told me she saw a few guys pull up and throw me out of the car. That is where I got the scrapes above my eye from the sidewalk.

"

A day later Allenby, who had clearly suffered severe facial injuries, was seen on Golf Channel, comparing his ordeal to the popular film Taken during an interview with Steve Sands. 

This is when the red flags first began to arise.

Allenby certainly had a strong recollection of events for a guy who had initially said he was drugged and woke up in a park six miles away from the wine bar with no idea how he had gotten to that location.

And in the days following Allenby’s original tale of kidnapping and robbery, conflicting reports began to emerge.

An Australian television station tracked down Charade Keane, who was the homeless woman who had initially found Allenby. Ms. Keane told 9news.com.au a story vastly different to the Hollywood action movie Allenby had described just a couple of days earlier.

The story by 9news.com.au stated the following:

"

Charade Keane, a local homeless woman, told 9NEWS she was just one block from a wine bar when she found Allenby trying to pay off two men to get his belongings back.

Ms Keane said she saw Allenby trying to offer the men $500 but they became aggressive.

She said she was helped by another man, believed to be a former soldier, to get Allenby in a taxi.

"

Ms. Keane also stated that she found Allenby at around 2 a.m., which of course raised some questions about Allenby’s whereabouts between leaving the wine bar at 11 p.m. and being located at 2 a.m.

But just yesterday a second witness came forward with a story that could explain Allenby’s whereabouts between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.  

A homeless man by the name of Chris Khamis told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Allenby was depressed and had been drugged at a strip club where he went to get some "action."

"There was no crime (when I was present)," Khamis said. "It was his stupidity. (Allenby) passed out and hit his head. I was there. Nobody pushed him out of a car."

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that Khamis then “gave Allenby a stack of napkins from his bag and tried to get Allenby to focus, but Allenby kept repeating that he was a millionaire and waved around his American Express Platinum Card.”

If the witness’ stories are to be believed, this is presumably when Ms. Keane arrived on the scene and saw a bloodied Allenby arguing with a few men before being put in a taxi.

According to Hawaii News Now, law-enforcement officials are now skeptical of Allenby’s story and have not even opened a kidnapping or assault case due to a lack of evidence.

According to Hawaii News Now, law-enforcement sources believe that “Allenby's injuries were not consistent with an assault, but rather they looked like scrapes he received from falling down.”

This would of course back up Mr. Khamis’ story about Allenby passing out and hitting his head.

So, two stories have now begun to emerge about exactly how Allenby wound up back at the luxurious Kahala Hotel with a bloodied face and a missing cell phone and wallet.   

The first story comes from Allenby and is a tale of kidnapping and robbery that Allenby himself compared to the Hollywood film Taken.

The second story comes from eyewitnesses who paint a completely different picture of what transpired on the streets of Honolulu on the evening on January 16.  

The witnesses’ stories suggest that after leaving his companions at the Amuse Wine Bar, Allenby made his way to one of Honolulu’s strip clubs where he was, according to Khamis, looking for some “action.”

Allenby was then either drugged or became overly intoxicated and passed out in a location just blocks away from the Amuse Wine Bar he had attended with his friends earlier that night.   

At this point Allenby may have passed out and cracked his head on a lava rock where several bystanders came to his aid and finally convinced him to get into a taxi and head back to his hotel.  

Somewhere along the way, likely when Allenby was passed out, his belongings were taken, and his credit cards were then later used to purchase $10,000 worth of items.

There is no doubt that at some point during the night of January 16 Allenby suffered facial injuries and was robbed of his wallet, credit cards and phone. 

The question that remains is exactly how Allenby lost his belongings and suffered those gruesome injuries to his face.   

Was Allenby an innocent victim in an elaborate robbery and kidnapping plot targeting a wealthy golfer, or was this all simply a result of what Mr. Khamis has described as Allenby’s “own stupidity?”

While hitting the bottle a bit too hard at a strip club before falling down on his face seems to be the more likely scenario, fact is often stranger than fiction, which is why Allenby’s tale of kidnapping and robbery cannot be completely ruled out just yet.

On thing is for sure, golf hasn’t seen mystery quite like this since Tiger Woods was found snoring in his driveway after a Thanksgiving night car accident back in 2009.

All we need now is for Dateline to send Keith Morrison out to Honolulu to begin unraveling this web of mystery.