Missing Bill

On October 25th, my neighbor and friend, Bill Eustace disappeared. Though popular and well-known in our close-knit community, Bill managed to walk away between 10 and 2 on a Saturday virtually unnoticed. Only one person reported seeing him earlier in the day walking his dog but not a single sighting afterward.

Our neighborhood is in a state of mourning and shock, each of us trying to make sense of our loss or trying to help in some way.

In the case of a missing person, there is no closure. There is no known destination to reach out for comfort and there exists an ever-present sense of urgency to keep looking in case the person needs help. Whatever facts we know become blankets of comfort and confusion as they spin over and over in our head looking for purchase.

This much I know or think I know: two weeks before Bill disappeared, his mother-in-law died after a long decline. Bill was diabetic and on insulin. He apparently left on foot, leaving behind his wife, car, beloved dog, Rosie, recently rescued and much coddled kittens, accumulated baggage of a life, his wallet, credit cards, driver's license and clothes. He seems to have left behind all his medications, a page-long list without which his doctor said he could not survive a day. And although it was a rainy day, Bill did not take or wear any gear to protect him from the storm. When his wife returned from running errands, she found nothing out of the ordinary (in fact, his T.V. and lights were on) except he hadn't left a note, a seemingly significant omission since he normally does so to communicate his comings and goings. A folded note found in his room, "be back by 5" was discounted by detectives.

What's missing and presumably with Bill is an Address Book. He left $30.00 and his credit cards in his wallet (though was known to carry large sums of cash, but, according to his wife, Bill mentioned he'd not had time to go to the bank in the week before he disappeared). He has not accessed any bank accounts or credit cards since he left.

Curiously, for the past year or so, Bill has been taking weeklong trips to Lancaster, PA where he said he was looking for retirement real estate. His wife says she knows very little about the details of these trips and Bill always paid cash so left no trail of where he stayed or what he did. He had just returned from one of these trips the weekend before his disappearance.

As an aside, Bill's former career was as an actor and assistant director on several notable films and a recent T.V. series, "Homicide" filmed in Baltimore, MD. According to the real-life Homicide detectives assigned to Bill's case, local detectives consulted on the set of Homicide and knowing Bill, he probably talked to them. I wonder - did he learn something that helped him make a plan to disappear? Afterall, disappearing is basically just a magic act, misleading the audience to focus on the wrong clues so what is in plain sight becomes obscured.

The detectives are looking for a body. They dragged the nearby lakes - most disturbingly the one behind my house - and found none. On Monday they will start searching nearby parks and wooded areas using cadaver dogs. A neighbor psychic who knows Bill, and who says she's assisted police in 3 successful searches and is right 95% of the time, says she sees Bill in heaven, that he became confused (presumably from low-blood sugar) and wandered into the woods to rest, later succumbing to hypothermia.

I'm betting on the 5% time she's wrong.

I'm consumed - no obsessed - by his disappearance. What was Bill's intention when he left? Was he planning to commit suicide? Was he simply going to a local destination and as the psychic said, became confused and got lost? Did he have a plan to disappear, knowing his health was deteriorating and wanting to leave while still heathy and able to choose? Was he the victim of random violence? Why didn't he leave a note?

What I want to believe is this: Bill planned his exit for a long time. He did not want to lose control of a future when his health failed beyond his ability to make decisions on his own. His mother-in-law's death was the catalyst for making his move and he made the final preparations during his last trip the week before he left. He walked out, took a bus to the Metro station and then to Union Station where he got on a train to somewhere else. I'm not sure where - Lancaster, PA seems too obvious but somewhere.

In the end the truth remains the same no matter what we theorize: Bill is missing from our lives. He walked out of this life and into another. And no matter what or where that other place is, this neighborhood, my life, won't be the same without him. I miss him, his smile, his musings on life, his dry sense of humor, his walking into my house on open invitation and talking to all my animals by name, his kindness toward my father, his comments on my Blog entries, and just seeing him all the time in my daily doings.

My neighbor (and also friend) Tim's Blog on Bill: http://blog.voytek.timcohn.com/?p=1

November 8th Update: Bill did not have his driver's license with him as previously believed and the witness who said she saw him heading to Lake Anne on Saturday at noon realized she saw him on Friday not Saturday. So no one has come forward with any info of Bill sightings after about 930 on Saturday morning. The neighbor psychic is now believing Bill is alive and living somewhere else - my theory. She says she's feeling blocked and getting mixed signals.