CA CA - Matthew Weaver, 21, Santa Monica Mountains, 10 Aug 2018

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Those photos must be pre fire. I'm sure once the family is able to they may do another. With brush being cleared it may make things easier.

Or more difficult. You might find bones but identifiers like clothing would most likely have burned.

By now, Malibu SAR, the family and their supporters have done a lot of searching in the area around the overlook. While it is very difficult terrain, that also means that a human could only get so far in it - either ambulatory or in the case of humans attempting to dump a body.

Also, the search dogs, onsite multiple times, lost MW's scent/trail very quickly at the overlook. This, in addition to the lack of evidence turned up in the many hours of searching which began hours after his last known contact, might indicate that he was taken somewhere else and his car abandoned at the overlook.

My feeling is there's nothing to search in this area.
 
Since I'm not local I feel like I don't have much to add, but I check in randomly to see if anything new has come up. My heart breaks for this family. Is this in the area where the fires are now?

The overlook area is still in the evacuation zone although I don't think the actual fire has gone through there the way it did at Malibu Creek State Park.

The Cal-fire map is a useful resource for conditions.
 
It is worth a go over as human remains NOT related to fire were found in Latigo Canyon area last week (still unidentified). reported in Malibu times...

The body of a missing woman (case from 2000's?) last seen at Malibu Creek state park were also found after a fire at pt mugu years later. With mudslides coming, the window may be short to recanvas.

I hope the Weaver family fared okay with these fires.
 
It is worth a go over as human remains NOT related to fire were found in Latigo Canyon area last week (still unidentified). reported in Malibu times...

The body of a missing woman (case from 2000's?) last seen at Malibu Creek state park were also found after a fire at pt mugu years later. With mudslides coming, the window may be short to recanvas.

I hope the Weaver family fared okay with these fires.

Latigo Canyon is really close to where Elaine Parks car was found by Coral canyon. Praying someone’s family gets closure :(
 
It is worth a go over as human remains NOT related to fire were found in Latigo Canyon area last week (still unidentified). reported in Malibu times...

The body of a missing woman (case from 2000's?) last seen at Malibu Creek state park were also found after a fire at pt mugu years later. With mudslides coming, the window may be short to recanvas.

I hope the Weaver family fared okay with these fires.

Oh wow I hadn't heard that. I hope the person is identified soon so they can go home.
 
Matthew Weaver Jr., 21, was last seen in the early morning hours of August 10, 2018 near Malibu, California. He had hung out with a friend until around 4:30 a.m., and then drove to the Malibu Canyons after dropping the friend at her house. His car was found the next morning off a trail near Malibu. Since Matthew’s disappearance, authorities, friends, and family have conducted multiple searches for the missing young man, but nothing of significance has been found. Family is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Matthew’s whereabouts.

Five years of Dateline’s Missing in America: 109 still missing
 
Do any locals know if this gate is normally locked? I'm wondering how the car drove past it.

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[Images taken from video at following link: Mystery Deepens Surrounding Missing Simi Valley Man Last Seen In Malibu]

That gate is locked, access by fire or maintenance personnel only. I grew up in the area, and used to go to that spot frequently as a teen. The gate was always locked, but there was one time it was left open (cuz a worker was working at the tower) so we got in real quick, drove down the road, it felt too sketch so we drove back, and as we got to the gate the worker was just leaving about to lock it up, not knowing we were there. Side note - I've been reading that people are able get a key copy to the lock or key?? Sounds sketchy to me...
 
I’m from the area, but not otherwise connected to Matthew. Still, I thought I’d add my two cents on a couple of points.

Matthew’s BMW: by L.A. standards, it wasn’t a nice car. It was an older model, and BMWs in L.A. are as common as Toyotas anywhere else. People here are really jaded by the wealth that surrounds them, even if they’re not wealthy themselves. So while seeing a car on a hiking trail would be weird, the fact that it was a BMW wouldn’t increase the weirdness.

It’s possible that Matthew also didn’t think of the car as more special than any other older model. Does it make sense to drive a car up a hiking path? No. But if you’re young and sleep-deprived, maybe high, and possibly showing off (if there were others with him), it might have seemed like a good idea at the time.

Which leads me to no one reporting the car.

It looks like it was hot that day, and hiking without shade when it’s hot is miserable. It’s entirely possible there weren’t many people out.

But more importantly, even if there had been dozens of people hiking that day, it’s also 100% possible that no one would have called about the car. It’s hard to overstate just how weird L.A. can get, and how inundated we are with that weirdness every day. Unless there were any signs of trouble, I can totally imagine people passing by, glancing at the car, shrugging, and continuing on their way. The sight would have been unusual for sure, but not “I should call the police” weird if it just looked abandoned.

Obviously these are just my opinions, but I figured I could lend some (jaded) perspective on people’s mindsets in this area.
 
Any updates that you can share? Anything we can do to help?

No we don’t have an updates it’s really slowed down and we are not able to go up there due to the rain and the fire to post more flyers. We are still looking for the couple in the picture as well. Just to clarify there were many people hiking up on the trail that day. The only way you would have seen Matthew’s car is if you went to the right of the mountain instead of straight up to the platform. (lookout) But most of the people hiking up there go to the platform, take some pictures and then leave.
 
No we don’t have an updates it’s really slowed down and we are not able to go up there due to the rain and the fire to post more flyers. We are still looking for the couple in the picture as well. Just to clarify there were many people hiking up on the trail that day. The only way you would have seen Matthew’s car is if you went to the right of the mountain instead of straight up to the platform. (lookout) But most of the people hiking up there go to the platform, take some pictures and then leave.

I’m so sorry to hear that.

Is the family still working with Mr. Brant? If you aren’t comfortable answering, I understand completely.

I was just hoping that he might be able to get Matthew’s friend (the one he was hanging out with leading up to his disappearance) to open up a little more.
 
I’m so sorry to hear that.

Is the family still working with Mr. Brant? If you aren’t comfortable answering, I understand completely.

I was just hoping that he might be able to get Matthew’s friend (the one he was hanging out with leading up to his disappearance) to open up a little more.

I believe @wildcats821 is Matthew's sister.
 
I’m so sorry to hear that.

Is the family still working with Mr. Brant? If you aren’t comfortable answering, I understand completely.

I was just hoping that he might be able to get Matthew’s friend (the one he was hanging out with leading up to his disappearance) to open up a little more.


Yes we are still working with him
 
Yes we are still working with him

So sorry for all that your family is and has been going through. I cannot even fathom how hard it all must be to have so many unknowns. Is the thought still that he is most likely somewhere in the canyon/around the trails or have other scenarios come up that he might have been taken elsewhere? Also how close did the Malibu fire come to these canyons?
 
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