1 00:00:00,965 --> 00:00:03,103 Narrator: Nathaniel Holmes disappeared 2 00:00:03,206 --> 00:00:06,275 on December 19, 2017. 3 00:00:06,379 --> 00:00:09,103 He'd just vanished, and he was just nowhere to be found. 4 00:00:09,206 --> 00:00:12,620 Inside my body I knew something was wrong, 5 00:00:12,724 --> 00:00:15,793 and I knew that we needed to find him. 6 00:00:15,896 --> 00:00:18,655 It is the worst feeling you can have as a mother, 7 00:00:19,655 --> 00:00:21,793 to not know where your child is. 8 00:00:21,896 --> 00:00:24,724 [narrator] His family is desperate for answers. 9 00:00:24,827 --> 00:00:27,379 [Jake Severson] We started doing cocaine quiet frequently. 10 00:00:27,482 --> 00:00:28,620 He would breakdown crying, 11 00:00:28,724 --> 00:00:31,241 telling me he didn't know how to stop. 12 00:00:31,344 --> 00:00:33,586 [Wendy] I think that he probably told us things 13 00:00:33,689 --> 00:00:37,068 that we wanted to hear, or wanted to believe. 14 00:00:37,172 --> 00:00:39,827 [voice breaking] And I think there's probably some things that we missed. 15 00:00:39,931 --> 00:00:41,827 [narrator] This episode ofDisappeared, 16 00:00:41,931 --> 00:00:45,482 retraces Nathaniel's last known steps. 17 00:00:45,586 --> 00:00:47,103 One of my fears is that 18 00:00:47,206 --> 00:00:49,068 somehow he got into these drugs 19 00:00:49,172 --> 00:00:52,379 and ended up owing these people money. 20 00:00:52,482 --> 00:00:54,413 It can be very dangerous for somebody 21 00:00:54,517 --> 00:00:58,482 who hasn't been on the streets much. 22 00:00:58,586 --> 00:01:02,137 This person on Oceanside said that a man asked to borrow her phone. 23 00:01:02,241 --> 00:01:05,862 He just googled the name Nathaniel Holmes. 24 00:01:07,758 --> 00:01:09,310 [Ben] I thought could this be him? 25 00:01:09,413 --> 00:01:12,068 Could this be the day we find him? 26 00:01:12,172 --> 00:01:14,793 [narrator] The more people who know Nathaniel's story, 27 00:01:14,896 --> 00:01:17,413 the greater the chance of bringing him home. 28 00:01:17,517 --> 00:01:18,620 [narrator reading] 29 00:01:21,896 --> 00:01:23,517 [narrator] Help find him. 30 00:01:23,620 --> 00:01:25,689 [narrator reading] 31 00:01:40,862 --> 00:01:43,931 My name is Wendy Keadle and Nathaniel is my son. 32 00:01:45,586 --> 00:01:47,206 The last time I saw him 33 00:01:47,310 --> 00:01:49,310 was on December 19th, 2017. 34 00:01:50,931 --> 00:01:52,378 And he's still missing. 35 00:01:55,655 --> 00:01:57,310 Nathaniel lived in the Westminster, 36 00:01:57,413 --> 00:01:59,689 Colorado area, since he was born 37 00:01:59,793 --> 00:02:02,379 with his older two sisters and younger brother. 38 00:02:07,068 --> 00:02:11,620 Nathaniel was a great brother to his siblings. 39 00:02:11,724 --> 00:02:15,344 Him and his younger brother Seth played all the time. 40 00:02:15,862 --> 00:02:17,137 He loved LEGOs. 41 00:02:17,965 --> 00:02:20,379 He was always very respectful. 42 00:02:20,482 --> 00:02:24,310 He was never argumentative. Just a very, very good kid. 43 00:02:26,034 --> 00:02:27,965 All of his brother and sisters, 44 00:02:28,068 --> 00:02:29,413 they all got along great 45 00:02:29,517 --> 00:02:31,758 and they just had a good time. 46 00:02:34,275 --> 00:02:35,758 My name is Ben Holmes, 47 00:02:35,862 --> 00:02:37,482 and I'm Nathaniel's father. 48 00:02:38,482 --> 00:02:40,310 Nathaniel as a child growing up, 49 00:02:40,413 --> 00:02:44,000 he enjoyed music, hunting and travel. 50 00:02:44,103 --> 00:02:46,551 He enjoyed doing a lot of things 51 00:02:46,655 --> 00:02:48,137 in his earlier years, 52 00:02:48,241 --> 00:02:50,517 you know, baseball and things like that 53 00:02:50,620 --> 00:02:55,241 and unfortunately Nathaniel's mother and I divorced in 2009. 54 00:02:56,448 --> 00:02:58,517 [Wendy] He was around nine years old. 55 00:02:59,206 --> 00:03:02,206 It did affect him a lot. 56 00:03:02,310 --> 00:03:03,862 He was very much a mama's boy, 57 00:03:03,965 --> 00:03:06,413 and, um, it was very hard on him 58 00:03:06,517 --> 00:03:09,068 to go through that event. 59 00:03:09,172 --> 00:03:10,413 We tried as best we could 60 00:03:10,517 --> 00:03:12,000 to make it as comfortable for him 61 00:03:12,103 --> 00:03:13,827 and make him know that he was loved by both, 62 00:03:13,931 --> 00:03:15,379 his dad and myself. 63 00:03:16,965 --> 00:03:19,517 Nathaniel, as he got older 64 00:03:19,620 --> 00:03:22,827 started to play the bagpipes like his father, 65 00:03:22,931 --> 00:03:25,517 and that was really big part of his life. 66 00:03:25,620 --> 00:03:27,724 [bagpipes playing] 67 00:03:34,930 --> 00:03:38,241 He learned bagpipes at a remarkably quick rate 68 00:03:38,344 --> 00:03:41,620 and he went from a very beginner status 69 00:03:41,724 --> 00:03:43,482 to a very accomplished status 70 00:03:43,586 --> 00:03:45,551 in, um, shorter period 71 00:03:45,655 --> 00:03:47,965 than I have ever seen anybody else accomplish that. 72 00:03:48,067 --> 00:03:50,448 One of my proudest moments of my life 73 00:03:50,551 --> 00:03:53,482 was playing bagpipes with Nathaniel 74 00:03:53,586 --> 00:03:55,827 at the Colorado Renaissance Festival, 75 00:03:55,930 --> 00:03:58,344 playing a tune that I wrote, with my son. 76 00:03:58,448 --> 00:03:59,827 It was amazing. 77 00:03:59,930 --> 00:04:01,448 [bagpipes playing] 78 00:04:08,655 --> 00:04:11,448 [Wendy] Nathaniel, he's very smart. He's very intelligent. 79 00:04:11,551 --> 00:04:13,448 But school was something 80 00:04:13,551 --> 00:04:16,517 that was kind of at the bottom of the list for him. 81 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:18,757 He would get bored and then it would just 82 00:04:18,862 --> 00:04:19,930 kind of go sideways for him. 83 00:04:20,034 --> 00:04:21,379 He was very bright, 84 00:04:21,481 --> 00:04:22,862 and he would pick things up very quickly 85 00:04:22,965 --> 00:04:25,482 but sometimes the pace was little slow for him. 86 00:04:25,586 --> 00:04:27,551 So he would get distracted 87 00:04:27,655 --> 00:04:30,379 and while he's interested in things, 88 00:04:30,482 --> 00:04:33,413 he would get distracted from his scholastic endeavors. 89 00:04:33,517 --> 00:04:36,689 [Wendy] So Nathaniel was not doing great in public school. 90 00:04:36,793 --> 00:04:39,551 We thought that it was maybe too much pressure 91 00:04:39,655 --> 00:04:41,172 or just too many people. 92 00:04:41,275 --> 00:04:42,862 Just wasn't something that he enjoyed. 93 00:04:42,965 --> 00:04:44,689 So, when he got into high school, 94 00:04:44,793 --> 00:04:47,137 we did try online school, 95 00:04:47,241 --> 00:04:50,000 which did not work because he was not self-motivated. 96 00:04:51,206 --> 00:04:54,137 So we put him in a alternative school. 97 00:04:58,206 --> 00:05:01,137 [Ben] At his point, Nathaniel was a junior in high school. 98 00:05:02,862 --> 00:05:04,517 His school made promises 99 00:05:04,620 --> 00:05:06,793 that he could catch up on classes, 100 00:05:06,896 --> 00:05:10,344 that he would be on track for high school graduation. 101 00:05:10,448 --> 00:05:12,275 So we were very positive 102 00:05:12,379 --> 00:05:15,517 that he could, you know, get his diploma, 103 00:05:15,620 --> 00:05:17,862 and move forward from there. 104 00:05:17,965 --> 00:05:20,655 My son had a small group of friends 105 00:05:20,758 --> 00:05:23,551 and he met a couple at his newer school 106 00:05:23,655 --> 00:05:26,482 and I think they may have been a bad influence on him. 107 00:05:28,620 --> 00:05:30,310 [Wendy] But he seemed to be lost focus, 108 00:05:30,413 --> 00:05:32,586 and you could tell that maybe he was doing things 109 00:05:32,689 --> 00:05:34,241 he shouldn't be doing. 110 00:05:34,344 --> 00:05:36,034 We thought maybe he was dabbling 111 00:05:36,137 --> 00:05:38,413 in some marijuana and some other things like that. 112 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:48,103 Monday the 18th, his behavior was quite unusual. 113 00:05:48,206 --> 00:05:53,310 He came home and he was very definitely chemically altered. 114 00:05:53,413 --> 00:05:55,689 I'd never seen him like this before, 115 00:05:55,793 --> 00:05:57,482 and I talked to him about that, 116 00:05:57,586 --> 00:06:00,413 and he said that he had tried some marijuana 117 00:06:00,517 --> 00:06:02,862 and he took a Xanax. 118 00:06:02,965 --> 00:06:05,034 [Wendy] His dad was very frustrated, 119 00:06:05,137 --> 00:06:07,586 because we thought that Nathaniel was on the right path. 120 00:06:07,689 --> 00:06:09,448 He had asked Nathaniel, 121 00:06:09,551 --> 00:06:10,689 you know, where you're getting this? 122 00:06:10,793 --> 00:06:11,862 What are you doing with this? 123 00:06:11,965 --> 00:06:13,551 What are you doing? 124 00:06:13,655 --> 00:06:15,551 And he just shut down. 125 00:06:15,655 --> 00:06:18,758 And I said this isn't behavior that's tolerable. 126 00:06:18,862 --> 00:06:20,448 You know, we can't do this kind of thing. 127 00:06:20,551 --> 00:06:23,034 And he did get in, uh, quite a bit of trouble. 128 00:06:23,724 --> 00:06:25,517 I was working that evening 129 00:06:25,620 --> 00:06:29,275 so I sent him to his mother's to stay. 130 00:06:35,172 --> 00:06:37,586 His dad did call me that afternoon 131 00:06:37,689 --> 00:06:40,655 and said that Nathaniel had taken some Xanax pills, 132 00:06:40,758 --> 00:06:42,655 so Nathaniel needs to stay with you tonight. 133 00:06:43,620 --> 00:06:45,551 Talk to him. You know, kind of try 134 00:06:45,655 --> 00:06:47,758 and get him in his right space. 135 00:06:47,862 --> 00:06:50,586 So he came to the house, we ate dinner. 136 00:06:50,689 --> 00:06:53,655 You could tell he was in a different zone. 137 00:06:53,758 --> 00:06:56,413 And I said, "Nathaniel, you know, this is not the path for you. 138 00:06:56,517 --> 00:06:58,137 You're too smart for this." 139 00:06:58,241 --> 00:07:00,482 You know, we wanted to make sure that he was safe. 140 00:07:00,586 --> 00:07:02,034 But I was concerned. 141 00:07:03,068 --> 00:07:06,206 I did find a few pills in his wallet. 142 00:07:06,310 --> 00:07:08,172 I didn't really even know what they were, quite honestly. 143 00:07:08,275 --> 00:07:09,965 But I just took them from him, and I said, 144 00:07:10,068 --> 00:07:11,241 "You know what, you don't need this." 145 00:07:11,344 --> 00:07:14,482 And he got really, really worried. 146 00:07:14,586 --> 00:07:16,344 Really almost scared, 147 00:07:16,448 --> 00:07:19,517 and said I have to take those back to school. 148 00:07:19,620 --> 00:07:22,137 He goes, "Mom, I... you can't take those." 149 00:07:22,241 --> 00:07:23,931 And, uh, well, I did, and I hid them. 150 00:07:24,034 --> 00:07:26,068 And I sent him to bed. 151 00:07:30,379 --> 00:07:33,931 The morning of the 19th, I got Nathaniel ready. 152 00:07:34,724 --> 00:07:36,724 Took him to school. 153 00:07:36,827 --> 00:07:38,379 I sat in my car and I watched him 154 00:07:38,482 --> 00:07:40,344 go through the school doors, and I left. 155 00:07:43,896 --> 00:07:45,758 After I dropped him off, I went to work. 156 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:48,655 I would say around ten o'clock in the morning, 157 00:07:48,758 --> 00:07:50,068 I got a call from Nathaniel. 158 00:07:50,172 --> 00:07:51,344 He did not have a phone at that time. 159 00:07:51,448 --> 00:07:54,275 I believe it was broken, 160 00:07:54,379 --> 00:07:56,068 and we didn't get him another phone. 161 00:07:56,172 --> 00:07:58,241 So he did not have any way to communicate with us 162 00:07:58,344 --> 00:08:01,448 other than, you know, a friend's phone. 163 00:08:01,551 --> 00:08:04,620 I just assumed that he has a friend's phone from school. 164 00:08:04,724 --> 00:08:06,793 And he said his friend Michelle 165 00:08:06,896 --> 00:08:09,655 was going to pick him up for ice-cream after school. 166 00:08:09,758 --> 00:08:11,068 This was a friend of his father's 167 00:08:11,172 --> 00:08:13,379 and I said, "Okay, well, I'm gonna give her a call 168 00:08:13,482 --> 00:08:15,793 and if she's gonna pick you up, that's fine." 169 00:08:15,896 --> 00:08:17,413 And he said, "Okay, I love you." 170 00:08:17,517 --> 00:08:19,103 That was the end of that conversation. 171 00:08:19,206 --> 00:08:21,586 So, immediately I called Michelle, 172 00:08:21,689 --> 00:08:23,758 and I said, "Hey, Nathaniel said that 173 00:08:23,862 --> 00:08:25,551 you're gonna pick him up for ice-cream?" 174 00:08:25,655 --> 00:08:27,965 And she goes, "No, I haven't talked to him for a few weeks." 175 00:08:28,068 --> 00:08:29,517 And I said, "Okay, that's weird." 176 00:08:29,620 --> 00:08:31,586 And so then I called his dad, and I said, 177 00:08:31,689 --> 00:08:33,620 "Hey, Nathaniel said Michelle was picking him up. 178 00:08:33,724 --> 00:08:36,448 I'm gonna go to school an hour early and pick him up 179 00:08:36,551 --> 00:08:39,448 and just make sure that he doesn't go out through the back door, 180 00:08:39,551 --> 00:08:41,793 do something with his friends, or whatever is happening." 181 00:08:41,895 --> 00:08:43,688 So, that's what we agreed upon. 182 00:08:46,172 --> 00:08:47,758 So, I stayed at work 183 00:08:47,862 --> 00:08:50,482 and about an hour before school got out. 184 00:08:50,586 --> 00:08:53,275 I went into the school office and I said, 185 00:08:53,379 --> 00:08:54,931 "Hey, I'm Nathaniel Holmes' mom 186 00:08:55,034 --> 00:08:56,724 and I wanna pick him up from school." 187 00:08:56,827 --> 00:08:58,137 And they just looked at me, 188 00:08:58,241 --> 00:09:00,241 and said, "Well, Nathaniel didn't go to class." 189 00:09:00,344 --> 00:09:02,620 And I said, "What? 190 00:09:02,724 --> 00:09:04,344 I watched him go in to school." 191 00:09:04,448 --> 00:09:06,689 And they said, "Well, he came to the office 192 00:09:06,793 --> 00:09:08,620 after first period, and then he left." 193 00:09:10,275 --> 00:09:12,172 That was the last time anybody saw Nathaniel. 194 00:09:13,103 --> 00:09:15,448 The school had no idea where he went, 195 00:09:15,551 --> 00:09:18,034 or what he did. They just know he wasn't in class. 196 00:09:18,137 --> 00:09:21,206 So that's when I found out my son was gone. 197 00:09:21,310 --> 00:09:24,000 And I said, "So my son walked in your school doors 198 00:09:24,103 --> 00:09:28,275 at 7:45 a.m. and he's gone. 199 00:09:28,379 --> 00:09:31,931 He's just gone, and I'm finding out at 2:30?" 200 00:09:32,034 --> 00:09:35,551 And uh, they didn't really have much of a response to me. 201 00:09:35,655 --> 00:09:38,275 I was visibly upset. 202 00:09:38,379 --> 00:09:40,413 I was angry. I was angry at the school. 203 00:09:40,517 --> 00:09:41,965 And so I left. 204 00:09:44,586 --> 00:09:46,965 [Ben] I really fault the school for a lot of things. 205 00:09:47,068 --> 00:09:49,206 They didn't inform me of anything. 206 00:09:49,310 --> 00:09:52,793 They didn't inform me that he had left the school. 207 00:09:53,827 --> 00:09:55,482 Had they done so, you know, 208 00:09:55,586 --> 00:09:58,793 I would have had maybe a four-hour jump on 209 00:09:58,896 --> 00:10:01,517 where he would've been. He would've been in the area. 210 00:10:01,620 --> 00:10:03,379 And they said, "Look our policy is, you know, 211 00:10:03,482 --> 00:10:06,068 we, we let the parents know that evening 212 00:10:06,172 --> 00:10:07,413 that their kid wasn't in school." 213 00:10:07,517 --> 00:10:10,724 And when I said that policy is problematic, 214 00:10:11,517 --> 00:10:12,965 they got on the defensive, 215 00:10:13,068 --> 00:10:16,103 and they wouldn't give me much other information. 216 00:10:17,724 --> 00:10:19,827 [Wendy] I immediately called that number back 217 00:10:19,931 --> 00:10:22,689 of the phone that he used and it was just a random lady 218 00:10:22,793 --> 00:10:24,413 walking her dog in the park. 219 00:10:24,517 --> 00:10:26,379 She said, "Yeah, he just asked to use the phone." 220 00:10:26,482 --> 00:10:28,379 And she even said, she goes, "I knew he was lying to you, 221 00:10:28,482 --> 00:10:30,034 but I figured he was just going to go do something." 222 00:10:31,517 --> 00:10:34,862 [Ben] We started looking in places that he might have gone. 223 00:10:34,965 --> 00:10:36,862 To the downtown area. 224 00:10:36,965 --> 00:10:41,517 To other parks and I just was not able to find him at all. 225 00:10:41,620 --> 00:10:45,655 And it was pretty immediately terrifying. 226 00:10:47,068 --> 00:10:50,137 Probably around 5:00, we contacted the police 227 00:10:50,241 --> 00:10:52,862 because he was a missing person at that point in my mind. 228 00:10:54,827 --> 00:10:56,172 I'm detective Troy Gordanier, 229 00:10:56,275 --> 00:10:58,068 with the Westminster Police Department. 230 00:10:58,172 --> 00:10:59,517 And I'm the detective assigned 231 00:10:59,620 --> 00:11:02,000 to the Nathaniel Holmes' missing persons case. 232 00:11:04,310 --> 00:11:06,275 So the police department did receive a call 233 00:11:06,379 --> 00:11:09,655 from Ben Holmes who is the father of Nathaniel Holmes 234 00:11:09,758 --> 00:11:12,896 on December 19th of 2017. 235 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:14,310 An officer went to the house 236 00:11:14,413 --> 00:11:17,344 and gathered some information from, 237 00:11:17,448 --> 00:11:18,724 to try and figure out 238 00:11:18,827 --> 00:11:21,241 the possibility of locating Nathaniel. 239 00:11:22,551 --> 00:11:24,103 We also took the initial report 240 00:11:24,206 --> 00:11:25,758 and, uh, learned 241 00:11:25,862 --> 00:11:28,103 that Nathaniel had gotten in trouble 242 00:11:28,206 --> 00:11:30,344 in the previous day or two 243 00:11:30,448 --> 00:11:32,344 because there was marijuana that was found 244 00:11:32,448 --> 00:11:34,275 also some prescription pills. 245 00:11:34,379 --> 00:11:37,310 So, basically his dad had grounded Nathaniel, 246 00:11:37,413 --> 00:11:39,344 uh, for a time. 247 00:11:39,448 --> 00:11:42,206 And Nathaniel went to school, 248 00:11:43,172 --> 00:11:45,241 and that's where he left the school 249 00:11:45,344 --> 00:11:46,620 after his first class, 250 00:11:46,724 --> 00:11:49,517 and just didn't return home. 251 00:11:49,620 --> 00:11:51,793 And he didn't have a cell phone, 252 00:11:51,896 --> 00:11:53,689 so the information was kind of limited. 253 00:11:58,103 --> 00:12:00,931 Detectives contacted the school, 254 00:12:01,034 --> 00:12:03,862 and was able to speak to the principal at the school, 255 00:12:03,965 --> 00:12:05,896 because the information 256 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:08,275 we had was that the principal was probably 257 00:12:08,379 --> 00:12:10,758 the last person that actually talked to Nathaniel 258 00:12:10,862 --> 00:12:13,448 before Nathaniel went missing. 259 00:12:13,551 --> 00:12:16,241 That's when detectives learned that Nathaniel had told him 260 00:12:16,344 --> 00:12:17,724 that he was no longer gonna be attending 261 00:12:17,827 --> 00:12:19,620 that school, that he was moving. 262 00:12:19,724 --> 00:12:22,310 The principal told him just to go back to class, 263 00:12:23,655 --> 00:12:24,965 and Nathaniel didn't. 264 00:12:26,413 --> 00:12:29,586 Detectives followed up and they found out from both parents 265 00:12:29,689 --> 00:12:31,827 that there was nobody moving anywhere, 266 00:12:31,931 --> 00:12:34,896 and what Nathaniel told the principal wasn't true. 267 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:36,724 That was really confusing to me 268 00:12:36,827 --> 00:12:39,034 because I don't know why he would say he was moving 269 00:12:39,137 --> 00:12:42,137 and I don't know why I would not have gotten a phone call, 270 00:12:42,241 --> 00:12:44,551 [scoffs] from the principal 271 00:12:44,655 --> 00:12:46,655 saying, "Hey, Nathaniel's in my office 272 00:12:46,758 --> 00:12:50,034 saying he's moving. He's obviously distressed." 273 00:12:50,137 --> 00:12:51,862 But we did not get a phone call from the principal. 274 00:12:53,413 --> 00:12:55,172 [Det. Troy Gordanier] So we believe he had a plan. 275 00:12:56,655 --> 00:12:58,965 And he didn't tell anybody about his plan. 276 00:13:05,034 --> 00:13:06,586 [Wendy] I was heartbroken. 277 00:13:07,517 --> 00:13:08,793 At this point I was scared. 278 00:13:08,896 --> 00:13:10,482 I wanted to believe 279 00:13:10,586 --> 00:13:11,931 that it was going to be okay 280 00:13:12,034 --> 00:13:14,172 and he would just show up at his dad's house 281 00:13:14,275 --> 00:13:16,034 and that would be the end of it. 282 00:13:17,172 --> 00:13:20,827 But I was so afraid for him. 283 00:13:20,931 --> 00:13:23,206 Inside my body, I knew something was wrong, 284 00:13:24,137 --> 00:13:27,034 and I knew that we needed to find him. 285 00:13:28,482 --> 00:13:31,931 But I remember the night before he went missing, 286 00:13:32,034 --> 00:13:34,896 when I found the pills in his wallet, 287 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,724 he had true fear in his voice when I had taken them, 288 00:13:38,827 --> 00:13:40,551 and he wasn't a scared kid, 289 00:13:40,655 --> 00:13:42,655 he was not afraid of anything, 290 00:13:42,758 --> 00:13:46,206 that I think he was scared of something or someone. 291 00:13:46,310 --> 00:13:48,000 That's what led him to leave. 292 00:13:56,310 --> 00:13:58,965 [Ben] As soon as we realized that he wasn't at the school, 293 00:13:59,068 --> 00:14:00,241 and he wasn't... 294 00:14:01,344 --> 00:14:03,206 able to be found at the moment, 295 00:14:03,310 --> 00:14:05,000 I was very concerned immediately. 296 00:14:06,068 --> 00:14:08,965 He was never missing before. 297 00:14:09,724 --> 00:14:10,862 My name is Hannah Holmes. 298 00:14:10,965 --> 00:14:13,379 I am Nathaniel's older sister. 299 00:14:13,482 --> 00:14:14,689 My name is Seth, 300 00:14:14,793 --> 00:14:17,517 and I'm Nathaniel's younger brother. 301 00:14:17,620 --> 00:14:20,448 [Hannah] In that moment I didn't really know what to think. 302 00:14:20,551 --> 00:14:22,000 [Seth] It was very out of character for him. 303 00:14:22,103 --> 00:14:23,655 It just happened all of a sudden, 304 00:14:23,758 --> 00:14:26,931 and there's no word from him or anything. 305 00:14:27,517 --> 00:14:28,931 Uh, he just disappeared. 306 00:14:29,034 --> 00:14:33,275 [Hannah] I immediately posted to Snapchat, Facebook, 307 00:14:33,379 --> 00:14:36,379 my little brother is missing. We don't know where he is. 308 00:14:36,482 --> 00:14:37,965 He doesn't have a phone. 309 00:14:38,068 --> 00:14:41,137 If anybody has seen him, call us, call the police. 310 00:14:43,862 --> 00:14:45,137 My name is Jake Severson, 311 00:14:45,241 --> 00:14:47,103 and Nathaniel Holmes is my close friend. 312 00:14:48,275 --> 00:14:51,724 I met Nathaniel at our high school in 2016. 313 00:14:53,793 --> 00:14:55,103 There's nothing I wouldn't do for him, 314 00:14:55,206 --> 00:14:57,931 I mean, always considered him a little brother I never had. 315 00:14:58,034 --> 00:14:59,689 That's why I spend so much time with him. 316 00:15:00,344 --> 00:15:01,448 From my perspective, 317 00:15:01,551 --> 00:15:03,862 Nathaniel was sort of sheltered 318 00:15:03,965 --> 00:15:05,206 by his parents growing up. 319 00:15:05,931 --> 00:15:07,413 His dad was very strict 320 00:15:07,517 --> 00:15:10,034 and had high expectations of him. 321 00:15:10,137 --> 00:15:12,172 I wanted to teach him things about the world 322 00:15:12,275 --> 00:15:15,172 and teach him you know, more street smart. 323 00:15:15,275 --> 00:15:19,310 He's so book smart, but he hadn't had a lot of real-world experiences 324 00:15:19,413 --> 00:15:21,275 and that's what he had me there for. 325 00:15:25,827 --> 00:15:27,655 Summer of 2017, 326 00:15:27,758 --> 00:15:30,517 a lot of us, me included, started kinda doing drugs 327 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:31,827 and things like that. 328 00:15:33,689 --> 00:15:36,241 A lot of us were doing cocaine quite frequently. 329 00:15:36,344 --> 00:15:38,827 It just became really popular in that friend group, 330 00:15:38,931 --> 00:15:40,379 and I think 331 00:15:40,482 --> 00:15:42,793 in turn, might have influenced Nathaniel, too. 332 00:15:43,931 --> 00:15:46,448 I think that he thinks, "Well, Jake and everybody else 333 00:15:46,551 --> 00:15:48,793 is doing it. I wanna try it, too." 334 00:15:50,068 --> 00:15:51,620 It really evolved quickly. 335 00:15:51,724 --> 00:15:54,655 I went from just doing it here and there to, 336 00:15:54,758 --> 00:15:56,379 we were doing it every day. 337 00:15:56,482 --> 00:15:58,034 We were spending a lot of money on it. 338 00:16:01,724 --> 00:16:03,068 It was towards the end of the summer, 339 00:16:03,172 --> 00:16:05,655 I started trying to clean myself up quite a bit 340 00:16:05,758 --> 00:16:06,862 because I, uh, 341 00:16:06,965 --> 00:16:08,413 I kinda came to the realization 342 00:16:08,517 --> 00:16:09,793 how bad off I was, 343 00:16:09,896 --> 00:16:12,206 and I was trying to help him also, 344 00:16:12,310 --> 00:16:14,241 because I started to worry about him. 345 00:16:14,344 --> 00:16:15,413 He would breakdown crying 346 00:16:15,517 --> 00:16:17,379 telling me, he didn't know how to stop. 347 00:16:17,482 --> 00:16:18,724 He didn't know what to do. 348 00:16:18,827 --> 00:16:20,586 He had asked me for help. 349 00:16:20,689 --> 00:16:21,896 And I would tell him, like, 350 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:22,931 there was no way for me to help 351 00:16:23,034 --> 00:16:24,448 because you gotta help yourself, 352 00:16:24,551 --> 00:16:27,413 and you gotta want to be done with that. 353 00:16:27,517 --> 00:16:29,275 And one day he would be like that, 354 00:16:29,379 --> 00:16:31,827 then the next day he would be very gung-ho, 355 00:16:31,931 --> 00:16:34,413 "Let's keep doing drugs. Why not? 356 00:16:34,517 --> 00:16:38,586 Okay, what's the point not doing them, because life sucks anyway." 357 00:16:39,586 --> 00:16:41,482 The day before he went missing he called me, 358 00:16:41,586 --> 00:16:44,172 you know, see if he could... asking me to get him more drugs. 359 00:16:44,275 --> 00:16:48,275 And he was crying and pleading with me. 360 00:16:48,379 --> 00:16:50,551 I said, "Nathaniel, please just go to bed. 361 00:16:50,655 --> 00:16:51,620 We'll talk in the morning. 362 00:16:51,724 --> 00:16:52,689 There's not much we can do 363 00:16:52,793 --> 00:16:55,206 at 11 o'clock at night right now." 364 00:16:55,310 --> 00:16:57,862 And that was the last time I spoke to him. 365 00:16:58,655 --> 00:17:00,689 And next day he went missing. 366 00:17:04,964 --> 00:17:06,344 [Ben] Looking back on it now, 367 00:17:06,448 --> 00:17:08,758 when he had gone to this new school, 368 00:17:08,862 --> 00:17:11,275 he was a little bit withdrawn. 369 00:17:11,378 --> 00:17:14,172 Maybe, it was, you know, beginnings of drug usage. 370 00:17:14,275 --> 00:17:15,517 Um, I'm not certain. 371 00:17:18,205 --> 00:17:20,931 [Wendy] I think during the time that Nathaniel struggled, 372 00:17:21,034 --> 00:17:24,758 he did not open to me or his dad as much, 373 00:17:24,862 --> 00:17:26,378 but you don't have a lot of control 374 00:17:26,482 --> 00:17:28,517 when your child is 16-17 years old. 375 00:17:28,620 --> 00:17:31,103 But I guess we thought we could get him over 376 00:17:31,206 --> 00:17:32,965 this little bump that he was in his life. 377 00:17:33,068 --> 00:17:33,965 He was so young. 378 00:17:34,068 --> 00:17:35,482 He still had so much ahead of him, 379 00:17:35,586 --> 00:17:38,172 that you know, we were just trying to make our way, 380 00:17:38,275 --> 00:17:41,344 and I think that he probably told us things 381 00:17:41,448 --> 00:17:43,275 that we wanted to hear or wanted to believe. 382 00:17:45,379 --> 00:17:48,000 [voice breaking] And I think there's probably some things that we missed. 383 00:17:50,931 --> 00:17:53,689 [Ben] My son have been missing for a day now. 384 00:17:53,793 --> 00:17:56,103 I did go to some of his friends' house, 385 00:17:56,206 --> 00:17:57,931 and I knocked, I said "Have you seen him?" 386 00:17:58,034 --> 00:18:00,103 You know, "What's going on? Was he at school? 387 00:18:00,206 --> 00:18:02,310 Did he talk to you? Did he say anything?" 388 00:18:02,413 --> 00:18:05,620 And his friends all said, "No." 389 00:18:05,724 --> 00:18:09,034 Nobody has been forthcoming with information. 390 00:18:09,137 --> 00:18:11,103 It's all been very close-lipped. 391 00:18:17,586 --> 00:18:20,000 [Jake] I remember I got a message from a friend, 392 00:18:20,103 --> 00:18:21,827 who told me that Nathaniel was missing. 393 00:18:21,931 --> 00:18:24,103 He was just gone, and nobody had heard from him. 394 00:18:25,034 --> 00:18:26,689 And he wasn't answering his phone. 395 00:18:27,827 --> 00:18:30,517 I remember couple of friends and I decided, 396 00:18:30,620 --> 00:18:33,103 "Okay, we are gonna go out and we're gonna look for him." 397 00:18:33,206 --> 00:18:35,448 Because we didn't think the police or his family 398 00:18:35,551 --> 00:18:37,310 would be able to get much information 399 00:18:37,413 --> 00:18:40,827 because a lot of people were afraid of incriminating themselves or others, 400 00:18:40,931 --> 00:18:43,103 so they're not gonna give out a lot of information 401 00:18:43,206 --> 00:18:44,965 when it comes to somebody who's on drugs. 402 00:18:45,068 --> 00:18:47,551 They're gonna protect themselves, 403 00:18:47,655 --> 00:18:49,551 so I figured if anybody could find him 404 00:18:49,655 --> 00:18:50,758 it probably would be our friends and I. 405 00:18:50,862 --> 00:18:54,000 And I remember we went around everywhere. 406 00:18:54,103 --> 00:18:56,517 We went driving, looking everywhere for him. 407 00:18:56,620 --> 00:18:58,172 But he was just nowhere to be found. 408 00:18:58,793 --> 00:19:00,724 He'd just vanished. 409 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:03,482 And nobody knew a thing. 410 00:19:03,586 --> 00:19:05,379 Nobody knew what could have possibly happened. 411 00:19:08,206 --> 00:19:09,931 [Ben] One of my fears is that... 412 00:19:11,103 --> 00:19:13,000 somehow he got into these drugs 413 00:19:13,103 --> 00:19:16,068 and ended up owing these people money 414 00:19:16,172 --> 00:19:19,862 and he feels that he can't come back. 415 00:19:19,965 --> 00:19:23,965 He thinks that he's somehow keeping us from danger. 416 00:19:28,965 --> 00:19:31,620 [Jake] Our friend group was almost kinda like a safety net for him, 417 00:19:31,724 --> 00:19:33,965 where we protected him from... 418 00:19:34,068 --> 00:19:36,586 how, sometimes outside drug dealers can be, 419 00:19:36,689 --> 00:19:38,482 um, those types of people 420 00:19:38,586 --> 00:19:40,655 can be armed, they can be very dangerous. 421 00:19:40,758 --> 00:19:43,586 And so he did lean on me and other, 422 00:19:43,689 --> 00:19:46,586 others to kinda keep him safe from those kind of people 423 00:19:46,689 --> 00:19:49,000 because he didn't know how to deal with that. 424 00:19:49,103 --> 00:19:52,482 But as Nathaniel's addiction started to get more severe, 425 00:19:52,586 --> 00:19:56,413 I absolutely think he tried to find cocaine from other sources. 426 00:19:56,517 --> 00:20:00,379 I think he, he felt like he could go on his own and try to find it, 427 00:20:00,482 --> 00:20:03,103 and which may have led to him 428 00:20:03,206 --> 00:20:07,448 making worse decisions or meeting the wrong people. 429 00:20:07,551 --> 00:20:09,896 I never ever in a million years 430 00:20:10,793 --> 00:20:12,862 would think my son would leave 431 00:20:14,172 --> 00:20:16,034 on purpose. That he would leave 432 00:20:16,137 --> 00:20:17,862 because, "I just wanna run away from home." 433 00:20:17,965 --> 00:20:19,758 He-- There was nothing for him to run away from here. 434 00:20:19,862 --> 00:20:23,827 So, something or someone scared him. 435 00:20:25,448 --> 00:20:27,862 [Jake] I feel like he may have ripped off somebody, 436 00:20:27,965 --> 00:20:29,586 he may have stolen from somebody, 437 00:20:29,689 --> 00:20:31,862 stolen money, drugs, 438 00:20:31,965 --> 00:20:36,275 and ran away to protect his family from those people. 439 00:20:36,379 --> 00:20:39,034 Those type of people, they do, they go for your family. 440 00:20:39,137 --> 00:20:41,689 They go for your people who are close to you. 441 00:20:42,551 --> 00:20:43,862 And I think that Nathaniel 442 00:20:43,965 --> 00:20:46,758 could have been trying to protect them. 443 00:20:46,862 --> 00:20:50,482 [Wendy] Those first few weeks when Nathaniel was missing 444 00:20:50,586 --> 00:20:53,241 my hope was that this is only gonna be a couple more weeks. 445 00:20:53,344 --> 00:20:54,896 He'll be home by Christmas. Then, no. 446 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:56,931 Now he'll be home by the first of the year. 447 00:20:57,034 --> 00:20:58,793 After a few months of him being gone 448 00:20:58,896 --> 00:21:00,896 it even became more concerning to me 449 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,551 because it's like he disappeared off the face of the Earth. 450 00:21:03,655 --> 00:21:05,310 He was just nowhere to be found. 451 00:21:06,896 --> 00:21:08,413 [Jake] I just kind of held on 452 00:21:08,517 --> 00:21:10,724 to hoping that maybe he would 453 00:21:10,827 --> 00:21:12,344 be in contact with me or somebody else 454 00:21:12,448 --> 00:21:14,620 so that somebody'll know that he was okay. 455 00:21:14,724 --> 00:21:16,413 And there was nothing for weeks. 456 00:21:17,103 --> 00:21:18,344 And for months. 457 00:21:18,862 --> 00:21:20,034 Until one day, 458 00:21:20,896 --> 00:21:22,758 I was at my house 459 00:21:22,862 --> 00:21:24,896 and there was a well-known drug dealer 460 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:27,206 who lived in the same apartment complex as me. 461 00:21:28,275 --> 00:21:32,379 And I'd seen Nathaniel going to her apartment. 462 00:21:34,068 --> 00:21:35,620 I remember I called his dad. 463 00:21:35,724 --> 00:21:37,793 And I told his dad, I'm like, you know, 464 00:21:37,896 --> 00:21:39,931 "We need to get the cops here. We need to get somebody here," 465 00:21:40,034 --> 00:21:42,103 like, "I swear, I just saw Nathaniel here." 466 00:21:50,068 --> 00:21:53,275 [Det. Gordanier] During April of 2018, Westminster Police Department 467 00:21:53,379 --> 00:21:56,103 received a tip that Nathaniel had been seen 468 00:21:56,206 --> 00:21:58,310 at an apartment on 60th Avenue. 469 00:22:01,068 --> 00:22:05,206 Detectives followed up that and ended up speaking with friend of Nathaniel's 470 00:22:05,310 --> 00:22:09,137 who said that Nathaniel had been hanging around this apartment complex. 471 00:22:09,241 --> 00:22:11,758 And this apartment possibly had drugs 472 00:22:11,862 --> 00:22:14,482 being used and sold out of the apartment. 473 00:22:14,586 --> 00:22:16,793 So, detectives tried to follow up on that, 474 00:22:16,896 --> 00:22:21,344 and unfortunately it didn't glean any information 475 00:22:21,448 --> 00:22:24,793 that Nathaniel in fact was at that specific apartment 476 00:22:24,896 --> 00:22:27,241 or had been around that complex. 477 00:22:28,241 --> 00:22:30,275 People that detectives spoke with 478 00:22:30,379 --> 00:22:31,793 said that they didn't know him 479 00:22:31,896 --> 00:22:33,000 and hadn't seen him around there. 480 00:22:33,103 --> 00:22:34,965 So that tip unfortunately didn't give us 481 00:22:35,068 --> 00:22:36,034 any more information. 482 00:22:37,551 --> 00:22:40,379 He did have that friend 483 00:22:40,482 --> 00:22:42,172 and he did say that he saw him. 484 00:22:42,275 --> 00:22:45,344 I'm not sure if he really believed that he did see him. 485 00:22:45,448 --> 00:22:47,827 He would know him, if he did see him. 486 00:22:47,931 --> 00:22:50,241 But, you know, my question always to people 487 00:22:50,344 --> 00:22:51,724 who thought they saw him 488 00:22:51,827 --> 00:22:54,896 is, "Why not stay with him, and call 911?" 489 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:56,517 Nobody would do that. 490 00:22:56,620 --> 00:22:57,965 And that was probably 491 00:22:58,068 --> 00:22:59,965 the biggest frustration for me, 492 00:23:00,068 --> 00:23:01,689 but nothing ever became of it. 493 00:23:03,172 --> 00:23:05,068 [Jake] Nathaniel knew where I live. 494 00:23:05,172 --> 00:23:08,000 There were two doors to get out of the apartment complex. 495 00:23:08,103 --> 00:23:10,103 There's a good chance he could have known that 496 00:23:10,206 --> 00:23:11,206 I was home 497 00:23:11,310 --> 00:23:12,862 and I could have saw him 498 00:23:12,965 --> 00:23:14,620 and so he could have gone out the backdoor 499 00:23:14,724 --> 00:23:16,241 and exited a different way 500 00:23:16,344 --> 00:23:17,482 and gotten away a different route. 501 00:23:17,586 --> 00:23:18,655 You know, it was night time, 502 00:23:18,758 --> 00:23:20,517 so there was a good chance he could have snuck away. 503 00:23:20,620 --> 00:23:21,620 There was also a good chance, 504 00:23:21,724 --> 00:23:22,931 I could have not saw him at all. 505 00:23:23,034 --> 00:23:25,103 It could have been hope in my mind 506 00:23:25,655 --> 00:23:27,068 to see my friend, 507 00:23:27,172 --> 00:23:30,275 and so I don't know for sure if that was him or not. 508 00:23:30,379 --> 00:23:33,344 [Ben] We knew he would spent time with his friends 509 00:23:33,448 --> 00:23:35,689 around downtown Arvada, 510 00:23:35,793 --> 00:23:38,448 and there's a mix of people there. 511 00:23:38,551 --> 00:23:40,379 Maybe some drug usage. 512 00:23:40,482 --> 00:23:43,413 There's a large transient population as well. 513 00:23:43,517 --> 00:23:47,482 [Wendy] I felt in my heart as a mom that he was not far. 514 00:23:47,586 --> 00:23:49,000 I know my son is out there. 515 00:23:50,758 --> 00:23:52,724 I'm Gregory Nieto. I've been a reporter 516 00:23:52,827 --> 00:23:55,379 with Channel 2 and Fox31 for 23 years. 517 00:23:55,482 --> 00:23:58,103 Olde Town Arvada has the water fountains, 518 00:23:58,206 --> 00:24:01,551 ice-cream shops, now you have a magnitude of breweries, 519 00:24:01,655 --> 00:24:02,862 a skate park. 520 00:24:02,965 --> 00:24:05,000 It's definitely a spot for adults 521 00:24:05,103 --> 00:24:08,034 and of course a lot of other teens to hang out, 522 00:24:08,137 --> 00:24:10,482 and like lot of communities across the country, 523 00:24:10,586 --> 00:24:12,965 it's become kind of a haven if you will, for, 524 00:24:13,068 --> 00:24:16,000 for homeless adults and homeless teens. 525 00:24:16,103 --> 00:24:18,448 [Jake] I know a lot of them, they like to hang out around 526 00:24:18,551 --> 00:24:20,655 the same park where all of us kids did. 527 00:24:20,758 --> 00:24:23,344 Lot of them were on drugs, 528 00:24:23,448 --> 00:24:25,137 along with the rest of us. 529 00:24:26,206 --> 00:24:27,965 I know whenever I was on drugs, 530 00:24:28,068 --> 00:24:31,068 I had some friends who were down there in that area 531 00:24:31,172 --> 00:24:34,482 who I would go to various houses and people's sheds 532 00:24:34,586 --> 00:24:36,620 hanging out for hours 533 00:24:36,724 --> 00:24:39,275 with people, some people I haven't met before. 534 00:24:39,379 --> 00:24:43,896 So, I think there was plenty of places for him to hide down there. 535 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,586 The atmosphere around the homeless community, 536 00:24:46,689 --> 00:24:49,517 especially for when you're dealing with, with kids 537 00:24:49,620 --> 00:24:51,517 or very young adults, 538 00:24:51,620 --> 00:24:53,448 it can be dangerous for them 539 00:24:53,551 --> 00:24:58,137 because they don't really know who they're hanging out with. 540 00:24:58,241 --> 00:24:59,586 There's drug use, 541 00:24:59,689 --> 00:25:02,310 there's people stealing from each other. 542 00:25:02,413 --> 00:25:04,172 It can be very dangerous for somebody 543 00:25:04,275 --> 00:25:07,517 who maybe hasn't been on the streets much. 544 00:25:07,620 --> 00:25:10,000 And with Nathaniel, the homeless community thing 545 00:25:10,103 --> 00:25:12,275 for him was probably fairly new. 546 00:25:12,379 --> 00:25:15,241 It could present challenges of being assaulted 547 00:25:15,344 --> 00:25:18,379 or getting into other types of drugs, 548 00:25:18,482 --> 00:25:21,310 and also he could possibly get into other criminal acts. 549 00:25:22,620 --> 00:25:25,137 Some 1,000 to 2,000 people 550 00:25:25,241 --> 00:25:28,448 are homeless or living on the streets of just Arvada itself. 551 00:25:28,551 --> 00:25:31,103 So even if Nathaniel was in Arvada, 552 00:25:31,206 --> 00:25:32,517 it might be tough to find him. 553 00:25:34,827 --> 00:25:36,862 [Wendy] We go to Olde Town every single day. 554 00:25:36,965 --> 00:25:38,551 Every road we drove down, 555 00:25:38,655 --> 00:25:40,103 we always were looking for Nathaniel 556 00:25:40,206 --> 00:25:42,827 because we felt that he had to close 557 00:25:42,931 --> 00:25:45,275 and he had to be somewhere in there. 558 00:25:45,379 --> 00:25:48,931 [Ben] But I didn't want to frighten Nathaniel away 559 00:25:49,034 --> 00:25:53,137 if he was hiding with the transient population. 560 00:25:53,241 --> 00:25:55,586 I bought a couple of different cars, 561 00:25:55,689 --> 00:25:58,482 so I could do stakeouts in certain areas 562 00:25:58,586 --> 00:26:00,586 and not be in the same car every day, 563 00:26:00,689 --> 00:26:03,655 and none of that came to anything. 564 00:26:03,758 --> 00:26:08,137 At other times, I would buy clothes at the thrift stores 565 00:26:08,241 --> 00:26:11,586 and I would go in the homeless population 566 00:26:11,689 --> 00:26:13,551 and dress down, just seeing 567 00:26:13,655 --> 00:26:16,586 if anybody had known or seen him. 568 00:26:16,689 --> 00:26:19,034 Just hoping that somebody would give us some lead. 569 00:26:19,137 --> 00:26:20,689 But still no leads. 570 00:26:22,310 --> 00:26:24,896 My mom and her friend and I, 571 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,689 we made little care packages for homeless. 572 00:26:27,793 --> 00:26:30,724 Uh, we put his picture, our phone number, 573 00:26:30,827 --> 00:26:34,000 um, in with it. It had just had some necessities, 574 00:26:34,103 --> 00:26:35,724 uh, maybe the homeless people would want. 575 00:26:35,827 --> 00:26:39,448 I thought even if they grabbed the picture, 576 00:26:39,551 --> 00:26:41,517 just toss it on the ground and took what was there, 577 00:26:41,620 --> 00:26:43,379 his picture was gonna blow somewhere, 578 00:26:43,482 --> 00:26:45,241 somebody was gonna see it. 579 00:26:45,965 --> 00:26:47,827 Let's find him. 580 00:26:47,931 --> 00:26:49,413 [Seth] We drive by homeless shelters, 581 00:26:49,517 --> 00:26:52,241 camps, anywhere where the homeless are, 582 00:26:52,344 --> 00:26:54,137 trying to see if we could find him, 583 00:26:54,241 --> 00:26:56,310 or if anybody knew any information. 584 00:26:57,620 --> 00:26:59,896 [Ben] When your greatest hope is that your son 585 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,724 is wandering around with the homeless people, 586 00:27:02,827 --> 00:27:05,655 that really says something about the situation you're in. 587 00:27:07,413 --> 00:27:09,896 [Wendy] I was so afraid for him. 588 00:27:10,551 --> 00:27:12,206 I wondered if he was hungry. 589 00:27:12,310 --> 00:27:14,586 I wondered all those things you wonder as a mother. 590 00:27:14,689 --> 00:27:17,586 It is the worst feeling you can have as a mother, 591 00:27:17,689 --> 00:27:18,965 to not know where your child is. 592 00:27:20,034 --> 00:27:22,344 [Hannah] A page was made for him on Facebook, 593 00:27:22,448 --> 00:27:26,482 Bring Nathaniel Home, and there's thousands of people joined to this page 594 00:27:26,586 --> 00:27:27,758 trying to find him. 595 00:27:27,862 --> 00:27:30,689 And the posters were the same photo that, 596 00:27:30,793 --> 00:27:34,827 because I wanted to make sure when people saw this photo they knew it was Nathaniel. 597 00:27:38,172 --> 00:27:40,172 [Det. Gordanier] Because of the Facebook page, 598 00:27:40,275 --> 00:27:42,827 on January 11th of 2020, this woman 599 00:27:42,931 --> 00:27:45,275 with Safe Harbor Counseling, Weatherford Texas 600 00:27:45,379 --> 00:27:47,827 contacted us, stating that 601 00:27:47,931 --> 00:27:50,586 there was a young man that had gone into her office 602 00:27:50,689 --> 00:27:52,241 and was selling bread. 603 00:27:52,344 --> 00:27:54,724 He was very cordial. He was very nice. 604 00:27:55,896 --> 00:27:57,724 Later that night she was home 605 00:27:57,827 --> 00:27:59,482 and she was going through Facebook 606 00:27:59,586 --> 00:28:02,206 and she saw a missing person 607 00:28:02,310 --> 00:28:05,379 flyer on Facebook that was Nathaniel. 608 00:28:06,482 --> 00:28:08,137 She looked at the photo 609 00:28:08,758 --> 00:28:10,655 from the Facebook flyer 610 00:28:10,758 --> 00:28:13,241 and based upon who she saw in her office, 611 00:28:13,344 --> 00:28:16,000 she thought it possibly could have been Nathaniel. 612 00:28:16,103 --> 00:28:18,103 Uh, so when she went back to work, 613 00:28:18,206 --> 00:28:22,000 she looked through the video footage at the office. 614 00:28:22,103 --> 00:28:25,310 She was able to get some still photos of this young man 615 00:28:25,413 --> 00:28:28,034 and sent those to the detectives here in Westminster. 616 00:28:28,724 --> 00:28:30,310 When I received that tip, 617 00:28:30,413 --> 00:28:32,896 I thought it was the most credible one that we've had 618 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,862 and I thought could this be him? 619 00:28:35,965 --> 00:28:37,827 Could this be the day we find him? 620 00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,172 [narrator] Nathaniel Holmes was last seen 621 00:28:45,275 --> 00:28:46,793 December 19th, 2017. 622 00:28:47,551 --> 00:28:48,551 [narrator reading] 623 00:29:00,931 --> 00:29:03,620 [Det. Gordanier] Safe Harbor Counseling said that it's not unusual 624 00:29:03,724 --> 00:29:05,379 for members of 625 00:29:06,482 --> 00:29:08,517 some of the local churches around there 626 00:29:08,620 --> 00:29:12,068 who are helping people that have an addiction 627 00:29:12,172 --> 00:29:14,517 or suffer from homelessness, 628 00:29:14,620 --> 00:29:17,172 that the churches will send those people out to sell bread 629 00:29:17,275 --> 00:29:19,586 so they can help make some money. 630 00:29:19,689 --> 00:29:22,068 But looking at the photos that were provided, 631 00:29:22,172 --> 00:29:24,379 it was hard to say if that was Nathaniel or not. 632 00:29:24,482 --> 00:29:27,344 And so positive identification couldn't be made. 633 00:29:27,448 --> 00:29:31,275 But detectives followed up with some of the churches 634 00:29:31,379 --> 00:29:33,758 that were in the Weatherford, Texas area, 635 00:29:33,862 --> 00:29:37,172 but they did not recognize Nathaniel as being associated with them. 636 00:29:37,275 --> 00:29:39,655 [Wendy] He did have a uncle in Texas 637 00:29:39,758 --> 00:29:42,793 and he was sort of familiar with that whole area. 638 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,724 I did see that picture but I do not think it was him. 639 00:29:46,827 --> 00:29:49,413 I don't think it looked like him, enough like him. 640 00:29:49,517 --> 00:29:52,965 He hadn't been gone that long and you would know your child 641 00:29:53,068 --> 00:29:55,241 and I don't think it looked enough like him. 642 00:29:55,344 --> 00:29:56,896 There's probably some resemblance, 643 00:29:57,000 --> 00:29:58,862 just like the people who I stop on the street. 644 00:29:58,965 --> 00:30:00,517 You know, it's enough to where you say, 645 00:30:00,620 --> 00:30:02,862 "Hey, that could be him." But I did not think, it was, 646 00:30:02,965 --> 00:30:04,482 it looked like him. No. 647 00:30:14,827 --> 00:30:18,034 By the time Nathaniel's 18th birthday rolled around, 648 00:30:18,137 --> 00:30:20,206 he had almost been missing for one year. 649 00:30:20,310 --> 00:30:22,517 I never really thought I would be celebrating 650 00:30:22,620 --> 00:30:24,413 his birthday without him. 651 00:30:24,517 --> 00:30:27,241 Um, we all got together at my mom's house, 652 00:30:27,344 --> 00:30:30,103 and we made his favorite dinner, and we got all of our 653 00:30:30,206 --> 00:30:31,586 presents for him, 654 00:30:31,689 --> 00:30:33,241 um, and put 'em in the middle 655 00:30:33,344 --> 00:30:34,827 and... and it was really hard. 656 00:30:34,931 --> 00:30:36,310 It's still hard, um... 657 00:30:37,034 --> 00:30:39,586 celebrating without him. 658 00:30:39,689 --> 00:30:41,206 It just doesn't feel right. 659 00:30:42,482 --> 00:30:44,275 [Seth] And mom would still get him cake 660 00:30:44,379 --> 00:30:46,793 and uh, presents, everything. 661 00:30:46,896 --> 00:30:50,344 It's very hard doing that when he's not there. 662 00:30:52,482 --> 00:30:53,896 [Wendy] We really never thought 663 00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:55,827 he would be missing his 18th birthday. 664 00:30:57,103 --> 00:31:00,758 Trying to wrap your head around everything that's happening 665 00:31:00,862 --> 00:31:04,000 along with having your other children... 666 00:31:05,137 --> 00:31:07,655 who have to live their lives also, 667 00:31:07,758 --> 00:31:08,965 it's just... It's hard. 668 00:31:12,931 --> 00:31:16,241 [Det. Gordanier] The longer time goes on, the information that we have 669 00:31:16,344 --> 00:31:18,241 isn't fresh information. 670 00:31:18,344 --> 00:31:19,137 It does start 671 00:31:19,241 --> 00:31:20,137 to become a problem 672 00:31:20,241 --> 00:31:22,551 when you're trying to locate somebody. 673 00:31:22,655 --> 00:31:24,275 You don't have anybody else 674 00:31:24,379 --> 00:31:26,551 that you can try and follow up with. 675 00:31:26,655 --> 00:31:28,586 The longer somebody is gone, 676 00:31:28,689 --> 00:31:31,172 it becomes quite the challenge to try and find them. 677 00:31:32,965 --> 00:31:34,137 They could be anywhere. 678 00:31:36,689 --> 00:31:38,137 [Gregory] When we first reported on the story 679 00:31:38,241 --> 00:31:40,103 there was still that sense of him as a child, 680 00:31:40,206 --> 00:31:42,206 but with the passage of time, 681 00:31:42,310 --> 00:31:44,241 you're not only considered an adult 682 00:31:44,344 --> 00:31:46,724 but, subliminally, I think 683 00:31:46,827 --> 00:31:51,241 law enforcement looks as, someone who is 18, as an adult 684 00:31:51,344 --> 00:31:54,448 and maybe has now the free will to do as they please. 685 00:31:57,620 --> 00:32:00,551 [Jake] At that point I felt like he was still hiding. 686 00:32:00,655 --> 00:32:02,448 I had had the thought to myself, 687 00:32:02,551 --> 00:32:04,620 and I mentioned it to other people that. 688 00:32:04,724 --> 00:32:06,310 Well, Nathaniel was 18 689 00:32:06,413 --> 00:32:09,689 and with that Nathaniel knows, he's not stupid. 690 00:32:09,793 --> 00:32:12,275 He knows, when he's 18, he can make his own decisions. 691 00:32:12,379 --> 00:32:14,758 He can leave his house if he pleases 692 00:32:14,862 --> 00:32:17,103 and he can be on his own. 693 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,034 [Ben] At this point I was very hopeful 694 00:32:26,137 --> 00:32:27,931 that we would come across 695 00:32:28,034 --> 00:32:31,620 Nathaniel being just with a transient population, 696 00:32:31,724 --> 00:32:34,413 or hanging out with some of his friends 697 00:32:34,517 --> 00:32:38,482 and somewhat embarrassed about having been caught. 698 00:32:38,586 --> 00:32:40,689 I got in my car with my younger son. 699 00:32:40,793 --> 00:32:42,586 We drove around downtown. 700 00:32:42,689 --> 00:32:45,034 We drove around in Pueblo, 701 00:32:45,137 --> 00:32:49,413 and in other states in nearby areas, 702 00:32:49,517 --> 00:32:51,965 New Mexico, and Utah and Wyoming, 703 00:32:52,068 --> 00:32:53,448 anywhere that I would think 704 00:32:53,551 --> 00:32:57,482 that a transient population would gather. 705 00:32:57,586 --> 00:33:00,862 It's amazing how many homeless places there were, 706 00:33:00,965 --> 00:33:04,068 the little enclaves behind stores 707 00:33:04,172 --> 00:33:05,965 uh, on the side of highways. 708 00:33:06,068 --> 00:33:08,379 It's like finding a needle in a haystack. 709 00:33:10,689 --> 00:33:12,344 So when I received the tip 710 00:33:12,448 --> 00:33:14,310 via Facebook from a truck driver 711 00:33:14,413 --> 00:33:16,586 that said that they had seen somebody 712 00:33:16,689 --> 00:33:19,965 that was asking how to get to California. 713 00:33:20,068 --> 00:33:22,655 I was immediately interested in this. 714 00:33:24,103 --> 00:33:27,517 "On the morning of Saturday 27, 2021... [continues reading] 715 00:33:36,758 --> 00:33:40,137 "... to ask me how long it would take to get to California. 716 00:33:40,241 --> 00:33:42,965 Figured he was hitchhiking to California by truck. 717 00:33:43,068 --> 00:33:44,413 So I told him at least ten hours." [continues reading] 718 00:33:49,827 --> 00:33:52,379 "...go home and find a safe place to stay 719 00:33:52,482 --> 00:33:56,551 and wait out his drugs instead of the area he was in that was sketchy. 720 00:33:56,655 --> 00:33:58,310 It seemed to really upset him. 721 00:33:58,413 --> 00:33:59,827 He snapped. 'I can't. 722 00:33:59,931 --> 00:34:01,517 I got to get away from Colorado.'" [continues reading] 723 00:34:19,551 --> 00:34:21,827 [Ben] This truck driver in New Mexico 724 00:34:21,931 --> 00:34:25,172 went on to say that this man walked of 725 00:34:25,275 --> 00:34:27,379 but she said that she did some googling 726 00:34:27,482 --> 00:34:29,620 and found Nathaniel Holmes missing poster 727 00:34:29,724 --> 00:34:31,724 from Westminster, Colorado. 728 00:34:31,827 --> 00:34:33,310 She said, "I saw his photo 729 00:34:33,413 --> 00:34:35,034 and I can't tell it was him for sure." [continues reading] 730 00:34:44,206 --> 00:34:46,757 "It's also important it's about 500 miles 731 00:34:46,862 --> 00:34:48,482 from Denver to Gallup, New Mexico. 732 00:34:48,585 --> 00:34:51,103 While this may sound like a lot to the ordinary person, 733 00:34:51,206 --> 00:34:55,034 truck drivers and trains can do a 1,000 easy in a day." 734 00:34:57,206 --> 00:34:59,620 [Wendy] It did seem weird that she said "Nate." 735 00:34:59,724 --> 00:35:02,551 Now, I think maybe his friends might call him Nate. 736 00:35:02,655 --> 00:35:03,620 We as a family, 737 00:35:03,724 --> 00:35:04,827 I have never called him 738 00:35:04,931 --> 00:35:06,172 anything but Nathaniel. 739 00:35:06,275 --> 00:35:08,448 But, if, you know, my thinking was 740 00:35:08,551 --> 00:35:10,931 maybe he's changed his name to Nate. 741 00:35:11,034 --> 00:35:13,586 But I don't know, so that seemed a little bit weird, 742 00:35:13,689 --> 00:35:15,689 but you know it's always something you have to follow up. 743 00:35:17,482 --> 00:35:20,241 [Ben] So immediately upon getting that tip, 744 00:35:20,344 --> 00:35:22,724 we contacted the Gallup Police Department 745 00:35:22,827 --> 00:35:25,206 and they went to search the area 746 00:35:25,310 --> 00:35:27,241 within hours of the tip coming in 747 00:35:27,344 --> 00:35:29,758 but it unfortunately was, you know, 748 00:35:29,862 --> 00:35:31,965 six or seven hours after the encounter 749 00:35:32,068 --> 00:35:34,413 that the tip came through the Facebook. 750 00:35:34,517 --> 00:35:37,241 But we send the police looking around the area, 751 00:35:37,344 --> 00:35:40,000 they looked at videos but nothing came of it. 752 00:35:44,655 --> 00:35:46,241 [Wendy] When we got that tip, 753 00:35:46,344 --> 00:35:48,448 it really did seem viable, 754 00:35:48,551 --> 00:35:50,517 but you know, then, you know that hope is dashed, 755 00:35:50,620 --> 00:35:51,965 and it's almost like, 756 00:35:52,068 --> 00:35:54,793 you feel like the day he left, all over again. 757 00:35:56,655 --> 00:35:58,172 [Ben] It's just great disappointment 758 00:35:58,275 --> 00:36:00,689 after every lead comes to nothing. 759 00:36:01,689 --> 00:36:02,965 It is soul crushing. 760 00:36:03,068 --> 00:36:04,551 It's absolutely soul crushing. 761 00:36:08,551 --> 00:36:11,379 [Wendy] At this point we were not getting very many leads, 762 00:36:11,482 --> 00:36:14,241 and as a mother you will do anything 763 00:36:14,344 --> 00:36:16,310 to try and find your child. 764 00:36:16,413 --> 00:36:20,000 I have never really reached out to psychics or spiritual guys before 765 00:36:20,103 --> 00:36:23,068 but I was trying to reach at straws. 766 00:36:23,172 --> 00:36:25,137 And there was one person in particular 767 00:36:25,241 --> 00:36:27,448 that sat with me and she talked about 768 00:36:27,551 --> 00:36:29,275 seeing Nathaniel's light. 769 00:36:29,379 --> 00:36:31,896 She said his light was dimming some 770 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,482 and that he was not in a safe place. 771 00:36:35,068 --> 00:36:37,103 But he was alive. 772 00:36:37,206 --> 00:36:40,172 She had pulled out a map and she looked at the map 773 00:36:40,275 --> 00:36:43,344 and she had said that, "I see him in California." 774 00:36:45,448 --> 00:36:49,620 And in September 2021, about three and a half years 775 00:36:49,724 --> 00:36:51,482 after Nathaniel had been missing, 776 00:36:51,586 --> 00:36:55,793 we got a tip that somebody had spoke with him in a park in Oceanside, California. 777 00:36:55,896 --> 00:36:58,068 This person on Oceanside said that 778 00:36:58,172 --> 00:37:00,517 a man walked up to her and asked to borrow her phone. 779 00:37:00,620 --> 00:37:03,344 She said that he didn't use the phone. 780 00:37:03,448 --> 00:37:07,241 He just googled the name Nathaniel Holmes. 781 00:37:09,965 --> 00:37:12,241 [Ben] And then he handed the phone back to her 782 00:37:12,344 --> 00:37:14,275 and walked off. 783 00:37:15,655 --> 00:37:18,827 And she said it looked like it might have been him. 784 00:37:18,931 --> 00:37:20,517 But couldn't tell. 785 00:37:22,275 --> 00:37:25,448 [Jake] Knowing Nathaniel was always on Facebook, 786 00:37:25,551 --> 00:37:27,827 and I think the first place he would check, 787 00:37:27,931 --> 00:37:29,965 if he was interested 788 00:37:30,068 --> 00:37:31,310 maybe it would be to see 789 00:37:31,413 --> 00:37:33,379 what people were saying about him 790 00:37:33,482 --> 00:37:36,965 or if anybody had any leads or anything like that. 791 00:37:37,068 --> 00:37:38,758 He may have been interested 792 00:37:38,862 --> 00:37:42,482 in trying to find out more information. 793 00:37:42,586 --> 00:37:44,931 [Wendy] Ben called me and said that, "You know, I don't know," 794 00:37:45,034 --> 00:37:47,034 and I said, "You know, we got to go with your gut." 795 00:37:48,758 --> 00:37:51,448 I thought it was credible and 16 hours later, 796 00:37:51,551 --> 00:37:54,551 I was in Oceanside, California. 797 00:37:54,655 --> 00:37:58,310 [Wendy] We had no idea, anything about California, or how big Oceanside was. 798 00:37:59,448 --> 00:38:01,689 Well, by the time he got there I think the lady 799 00:38:01,793 --> 00:38:03,379 who had originally messaged him 800 00:38:03,482 --> 00:38:05,137 kind of ghosted him again. 801 00:38:07,689 --> 00:38:08,931 [Ben] When I tried to give 802 00:38:09,034 --> 00:38:11,793 you know, missing person posters to the police, 803 00:38:11,896 --> 00:38:13,689 but they sort of scoffed at that 804 00:38:13,793 --> 00:38:16,310 and said there are thousands of missing people 805 00:38:16,413 --> 00:38:17,344 wandering around here. 806 00:38:17,448 --> 00:38:19,241 We have thousands of transients. 807 00:38:19,344 --> 00:38:22,344 And they didn't seem very forthcoming in trying to help. 808 00:38:23,448 --> 00:38:26,448 So it came to nothing. 809 00:38:26,551 --> 00:38:29,448 [Nieto] Any given time there are more than 150,000 homeless people 810 00:38:29,551 --> 00:38:31,344 in the state of California. 811 00:38:31,448 --> 00:38:33,344 When we talk about the number of homeless 812 00:38:33,448 --> 00:38:35,344 encampments there in the state as well. 813 00:38:35,448 --> 00:38:37,068 It would simply be impossible 814 00:38:37,172 --> 00:38:38,896 for at least one individual 815 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,413 to fly out there and search for their son. 816 00:38:44,103 --> 00:38:48,586 [Wendy] The worry and dread just continues to get worse. 817 00:38:48,689 --> 00:38:51,103 And I feel like we tried everything. 818 00:38:51,206 --> 00:38:53,793 Trying to live a normal life, 819 00:38:53,896 --> 00:38:56,965 with a child missing is impossible. 820 00:38:57,068 --> 00:39:01,793 We held the candlelight vigil on the five year anniversary of his disappearance. 821 00:39:01,896 --> 00:39:03,965 We sent up little Chinese balloons 822 00:39:04,068 --> 00:39:05,896 with different sayings and writings 823 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:07,620 and prayers to come home 824 00:39:07,724 --> 00:39:09,689 and it definitely heartened me 825 00:39:09,793 --> 00:39:11,758 to know that the community is still behind us 826 00:39:11,862 --> 00:39:13,137 and still very hopeful. 827 00:39:19,862 --> 00:39:21,413 [Wendy] I think as time goes on, 828 00:39:21,517 --> 00:39:24,793 it gets harder because now we're at five and a half years, 829 00:39:24,896 --> 00:39:27,206 Nathaniel is 22 years old, 830 00:39:27,310 --> 00:39:29,103 and still nothing. 831 00:39:29,206 --> 00:39:30,551 Still no sign of him. Still nothing. 832 00:39:32,448 --> 00:39:33,620 It's a cold case. 833 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,586 [Ben] If you've seen or heard 834 00:39:38,689 --> 00:39:40,551 of anything about my son, Nathaniel, 835 00:39:40,655 --> 00:39:42,551 um, please just let us know. 836 00:39:42,655 --> 00:39:45,344 Or you can contact the Westminster Police Department. 837 00:39:45,448 --> 00:39:46,379 They're very thorough, 838 00:39:46,482 --> 00:39:48,379 and they're very good at their job. 839 00:39:50,551 --> 00:39:52,137 [Jake] If I could talk to Nathaniel, 840 00:39:52,241 --> 00:39:54,000 I just want him to know that I would give anything 841 00:39:54,103 --> 00:39:55,275 for him to come home, 842 00:39:55,379 --> 00:39:57,896 and to show him how far I've come, 843 00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,448 and to bring him up to that level with me, 844 00:40:00,551 --> 00:40:03,827 and for him to live the wonderful life 845 00:40:03,931 --> 00:40:05,724 I know that he was meant to live. 846 00:40:09,137 --> 00:40:11,931 Nathaniel, we all love you and miss you, 847 00:40:12,034 --> 00:40:14,172 and I really need you back. 848 00:40:14,275 --> 00:40:16,034 Our life is not same without you. 849 00:40:17,137 --> 00:40:20,103 Nathaniel, if you're out there watching this, 850 00:40:20,206 --> 00:40:22,310 or if somebody shows this to you, 851 00:40:22,413 --> 00:40:25,137 we just want you to know that we love you so much, 852 00:40:26,241 --> 00:40:29,793 and all we want is for you to come home safe. 853 00:40:29,896 --> 00:40:31,620 We are not angry at you. 854 00:40:31,724 --> 00:40:33,034 We love you. 855 00:40:33,620 --> 00:40:35,413 And we just need you. 856 00:40:35,517 --> 00:40:37,068 The family is not whole without you. 857 00:40:40,241 --> 00:40:41,896 [Wendy] I know my son is still alive. 858 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:43,620 I know my son is out there. 859 00:40:43,724 --> 00:40:45,689 Part of our family is missing. 860 00:40:45,793 --> 00:40:47,620 [voice breaking] Part of my heart is missing. 861 00:40:47,724 --> 00:40:49,827 And until the day he comes home 862 00:40:49,931 --> 00:40:51,793 it will remain. 863 00:40:51,896 --> 00:40:55,241 We will never ever, ever give up hope. 864 00:40:55,344 --> 00:40:56,931 We will never stop looking. 865 00:40:57,034 --> 00:40:59,068 We will never stop searching. 866 00:40:59,172 --> 00:41:01,965 That's what's important, is to bring him home. 867 00:41:18,689 --> 00:41:20,241 ♪♪ 868 00:41:20,344 --> 00:41:21,862 She wouldn't just take off. 869 00:41:21,965 --> 00:41:23,482 What happened to her? 870 00:41:23,586 --> 00:41:26,758 The bartender mentioned that she left with a guy. 871 00:41:26,862 --> 00:41:29,896 It's our job to determine what happened. 872 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:31,689 No stone's been left unturned. 873 00:41:31,793 --> 00:41:34,034 I think he thinks that he's above the law. 874 00:41:34,137 --> 00:41:35,931 I think he thinks that he's untouchable. 875 00:41:36,034 --> 00:41:37,241 Who's little girl is next?