Horman, Joyce

Charles Edmund Horman, a Harvard educated American freelance journalist, was abducted, tortured, and executed in Chile during General Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état that began on September 11, 1973 to overthrew the government of Salvador Allende. After Horman's disappearance his family, including wife Joyce Horman and parents Edmund and Elizabeth Horman began an effort to find him, and then, following the eventual discovery of his body, to determine who was involved in his murder. In 1976 Joyce Horman, on behalf of the Horman family, filed the landmark suit Joyce Horman, et al., v. Henry Kissinger, et. al. that charged Kissinger and other Nixon Administration officials with the wrongful death of Charles Horman and with its concealment. In 1980 the case was dismissed "without prejudice."

In 1978 the book The Execution of Charles Horman by Thomas Hauser, and then in 1982 the film Missing by director Costa-Gavras publicized allegations that the United States government had known about—and perhaps been complicit in—the abduction and murder of Horman. The film elicited a libel lawsuit against Costa-Gavras and Universal Studios by Nathaniel Davis, who had been U.S. Ambassador to Chile in 1973. The suit was later dismissed.

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