Asking this same question? As a caretaker, what were his duties at the property? Was the property vacant or did someone live there?
The property at 2159 Ellis was vacant at the time of his disappearance. Scott was a hard worker and he also had alcohol and drug problems. The reason he was up at 2159 at 1 am was because he was about to drink a 40 oz of beer. When his brother came the next day to look for him, he found the back sliding glass door wide open, the electric heater still on and a 40 oz with barely a few swigs gone. This is totally out of character for Scott. He loved his beer and he treated our property with great respect. Under normal circumstances, he would have finished his beer, turned off the heater and closed the door before going home.
His wife has serious mental health issues and is on disability for that. She requires psychiatric treatment with medication and has other health problems. Scott has been her caregiver for at least twenty years and was very responsible when it came to his wife. His last steady employment was more than twenty years ago. Our family employed him to do basic maintenance work on our rental houses. He was gifted with an ability to assess a mechanical problem and repair it.
Scott's mother passed away in December 2023 and left Scott and his two brothers and sister a small sum of money (about $2500) each. He took his mother's death pretty hard and we have surmised that he may have increased his alcohol and drug intake as well. His brother and I wonder if he had gotten into crack at some point. His brother found evidence that Scott had maxed out several credit cards for about $7,000. We don't have access to his bank records to see if he spent the $2500. The police may have investigated this but they are being tight lipped.He also had a cell phone but he had the GPS locator turned off because he was afraid that the government might be spying on him. I told him on several occasions that this was probably not very likely because he wasn't a gangster or a terrorist.
Besides the drug theory, we have another theory that he may have been robbed by a family member. His niece has severe mental issues and is frequently homeless. She was staying with Scott and his wife at 2151 near the time of his disappearance. We think she could have overheard Scott talking about the money from his mother and enlisted some of her friends to rob him. We can't locate her because currently she is homeless and staying at one of several homeless encampments near Augusta, Ga.
Scott has no car and walks to where he needs to go. He lost his driver's licence as an habitual violator many years ago. There are several open air drug markets within walking distance of his home. It's possible that he got mixed up with the wrong people in the drug trade and was harmed as a result.
It's been almost a year since he disappeared and we are no closer to finding him than we were when he went missing. I think it's pretty certain he is dead and we're left wondering. I feel like if he went to a crack house and died, the denizens there would have called the police. If he died in an alley someone would have noticed.
His brother who lives in Augusta suffered a near fatal illness about a month ago and just got released from the hospital. He's been under incredible stress because of this and it probably contributed to his incident.
TIA for reading and contributing
