CA CA - Nick Vigil, 38, Fortuna, 25 Feb 2020

[mlhenn]

$5,000 reward for missing Fortuna man - KIEM-TV | Redwood News

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the return of a missing Fortuna man.

38-year-old Nick Vigil was last seen February 25 leaving his families Fortuna home heading to the Blue Lake Casino.

Vigil’s grey Ford F-250 truck with a camper shell was later found in Hoopa.

 

[mlhenn]

Several dozen families of murdered, missing Indigenous people rally outside Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office – Times-Standard

“There’s a lot of people that go missing all the time in Humboldt County,” James said. Humboldt County has a large number of cold cases, she said, “which is crazy to think about — how many people don’t have answers. People want answers.”

These are people’s brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, James said, “and it sucks when nothing gets done about it.”

Debbie Frisiello, of Fortuna, said her son Nick Vigil left the house one day in February and said he’d be right back, but never returned. In that case, Jesse Armstrong, a local advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous people and the organizer of the rally, said it took 46 days for law enforcement agencies to search Vigil’s property, which appeared to have been ransacked once it was searched.

 

[CastlesBurning]

Candlelight Vigil at Courthouse in Support of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People – Redheaded Blackbelt

 

[mlhenn]

$5,000 reward for missing Fortuna man - KIEM-TV | Redwood News

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the return of a missing Fortuna man.

38-year-old Nick Vigil was last seen February 25 leaving his families Fortuna home heading to the Blue Lake Casino.

 

[mlhenn]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Circumstances of Disappearance
Nick Vigil was last seen leaving his mother's home in Fortuna, California on February 25, 2020.

His vehicle was found several weeks later on the Hoopa Reservation in Weitchpec, California (Gray 2006 Ford F250).

Nick frequented the nearby Blue Lake and Bear River Casinos.

Nick did not return as expected that day and missed plans which was unusual.

 

[Al Ka]

Nearly a Year and a Half After a Fortuna Man Went Missing Under Suspicious Circumstances, a $10,000 Reward Has Been Offered for Answers

On the morning of February 25, 2020, 38-year-old Nick Vigil left his mother’s Fortuna home never to be seen again. Vigil’s truck was found abandoned nearly two hours northeast of Fortuna on a rural Weitchpec road. Fortuna Police Department’s Detective Ryan Richardson characterized his disappearance as “suspicious.” Vigil’s mother Debbie Frisiello called the last fourteen months of her life “the most devastating thing I have ever had to go through” and in her desperation, is now offering a $10,000 reward for anyone that helps authorities find her son.
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Vigil’s Ford F250 was found on Weitchepec’s Cappel Road and she characterizes the vehicle’s location as “staged” by the suspects.
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Detective Richardson said the disappearance of Nick Vigil remains a “suspicious missing person circumstance” that is being treated as a criminal matter.
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Frisiello told us that in the days before his disappearance, her son Nick Vigil had attended a UFC match in Las Vegas where he had won a considerable amount of money. He returned home in the early morning of February 25, awoke early, and left driving his Ford F250 truck to pick up a check, a friend later told Frisiello.
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Debbie Frisiello said that when she last saw her son, he was wearing “Nike black shoes, black, short socks, khaki pocketed shorts, a black belt, a white t-shirt, and a chocolate brown hoodie, black backpack with his laptop, his keys to everything.”

She described her son as 6’ 1’’, weighing 250 lbs, and having brown eyes. She added that he shaves his head and does not typically have a beard or a mustache.

Nearly a Year and a Half After a Fortuna Man Went Missing Under Suspicious Circumstances, a $10,000 Reward Has Been Offered for Answers – Redheaded Blackbelt

 

[BuySellTrade]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

View attachment 294611

Circumstances of Disappearance
Nick Vigil was last seen leaving his mother's home in Fortuna, California on February 25, 2020.

His vehicle was found several weeks later on the Hoopa Reservation in Weitchpec, California (Gray 2006 Ford F250).

Nick frequented the nearby Blue Lake and Bear River Casinos.

Nick did not return as expected that day and missed plans which was unusual.

One of the article states where Vigil's vehicle was found, "Vigil’s Ford F250 was found on Weitchepec’s Cappel Road and she characterizes the vehicle’s location as “staged” by the suspects."

Kapel is downriver on the Klamath from Weitchpec and is on the Yurok Reservation, not the Hupa Reservation (Hoopa the place, Hupa the people). Kapel is a farther drive than Hoopa from what most at WS consider civilization (like the location of the Blue Lake Casino, Kapel is about a 75 mile one way drive on curvy mountainous road. Can be quite unfriendly area to outsiders.

 

[BuySellTrade]

This is really concerning--two men missing, one month apart, with abandoned vehicles, in this remote location. According to Wikipedia, Weitchpec is an unincorporated community within the Yurok reservation in Humboldt County, California. Here is a map, using the locations from the OP. It is about a hundred mile trip, 2 hours and 19 minutes:

View attachment 245053
Google Maps

No addresses were given, so the route is approximate. Legend:

• Fortuna - Vigil's mother's house
• Titlow Hill Road - where cell phone pinged
• Weitchpec- area where vehicle was found

The information in the OP actually said Titlow Road in Blue Lake. There was no Titlow Road in Blue Lake, but there is Titlow Hill Road, which is located between the towns of Blue Lake and Willow Creek. If this is incorrect, please revise the map!

Where Vigil's vehicle was found is not on your map. The area known as Kapel and Kapel Road are off Route 169 on the Yurok Reservation which is north of Weitchpec and not on your map but located to the north.

State Route 299 goes from 101 at Arcata on Humboldt Bay and runs southeast to meet IS 5 at Redding. Blue Lake, location of casino and last sighting, is about 7 miles from Arcata (where I have great and great grandparents buried and my Mother and maternal grandmother were born there). Willow Creek is about 40 miles east on 299 from 101. State Route 96 tee's into 299 at Willow Creek. SR 96 goes down the Trinity River from Willow Creek through Hoopa and reaches Weitchpec after about 25 miles. The Trinity River joins the Klamath River at Weitchpec and takes a bend to the northwest where after traversing the Yurok Reservation and Redwood National Park enters he Pacific at Requa. State Route 169 joins SR 96 at Weitchpec. Kapel Road is about 10 miles downriver on SR 169, I think part of Kapel Road is county and part is Tribe. There are a number of private and Trust properties, the area has a long reputation for lawlessness and pot growing (however, the policy of the local Tribes does not favor pot drowing, partially because of federal funding).

 

[mlhenn]

Nicholas Colt Vigil – The Charley Project

Last updated May 29 2021; casefile added.

• Missing Since01/25/2020
• Missing FromFortuna, California

Details of Disappearance
Vigil was last seen in Fortuna, California on February 25, 2020. That day he left his mother's house that morning without indicating where he was going. He never returned. He was supposed to come by a friend's house that day to pick up a check, but he never arrived there either.

His last cellular phone ping was in the vicinity of Titlow Road in Blue Lake, California. Vigil was a regular at the Blue Lake Casino and also the Bear River Casino, but a check with the staff and the surveillance footage at both casinos revealed no indication that he was at either of them on the day of his disappearance.

On the evening of the day he disappeared, Vigil's gray 2006 Ford F-250 was found abandoned by a forester in the Weitchpec, California area. A photo of it is posted with this case summary. The forester didn't report this immediately. He passed the vehicle in the same location several times over the following days and noticed indications that it was getting broken into. Law enforcement didn't learn about the car until mid-April. Vigil owned property in Weitchpec, and his mother stated it also was broken into and ransacked after her son's disappearance.

The circumstances of Vigil's disappearance are unclear. His case remains unsolved.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Debbie Frisiello, Nick’s mother, told us on the 24th of February, 2020, her son had just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, where his bets at a heavy weight boxing match resulted in a significant financial win. However, she explained, “He was sick most of the time he was down there.” The next morning on the 25th, he left the home they shared and she never heard from him again. In the years since his disappearance, she pieced together a timeline through a combination of personal accounts, cell phone data, a social media post, the help of missing person activists and the efforts of law enforcement.

She recounted to us the last normal moments before her son vanished. After resting from his trip at the house they shared, Nick received a business text about 7 a.m. Afterward, he left the house after a brief exchange with his mother. “When Nick left that morning, he didn’t tell me where he was going,” she told us. “He said I’ll be back in a bit” after doing some errands. She said he took his laptop, the money he won, and his phone with him in a backpack and got into his pickup. She eventually learned he also had some expensive jewelry with him–a necklace she had purchased for him and family heirlooms. “Nick never carried that kind of money [normally],” she told us.

https://kymkemp.com/2024/02/25/vigilance-a-mothers-four-year-search-for-her-missing-son-she-offers-a-25000-reward-to-find-her-only-child/