Ash Kelley

It's the way we're kind of, like, conditioned to think with these kinds of stories.

That, like, a group of young men, one of them suddenly going missing is like, what?

Like, how did that happen?

Like, he wasn't safe?

yeah it's it's just like very shocking it is it's and it's chilling yeah it is chilling that's the perfect way to describe it so they spend all night searching the increasingly empty streets of matamoros for mark growing more and more concerned with every single hour that passed finally when the sun came up and they still hadn't found any sign of mark the three decided maybe he had just gotten a ride back to south padre with someone that he met at the bar maybe that girl that they saw him talking to earlier they're like

hopefully we're overreacting here yeah because the alternative that their friend had now disappeared in a foreign country was way too frightening to accept at the time and like who takes a grown man well and you don't admit i i don't think you initially go to that like obviously when you're looking for your friend for hours and hours and you can't find them like panic starts to set in but then after a little bit you're like okay let's be a little logical here maybe he did just get a ride yeah like you don't want to go doesn't want to believe that

The worst case scenario.

Yeah.

Right.

they got back to the Sheridan later that morning back in Texas they discovered Mark's bed was empty it didn't look like it had been slept in and there was nothing in the room to indicate that he returned exhausted though from their night of partying and searching they went to bed hoping that when they woke back up he would be back

remember this is the 80s like we're not all super well informed in how to respond to a situation like this and honestly I think what you were just saying as men they just weren't thinking they're not thinking like yeah because they're not conditioned to think like this and again remember like back then it's not like they were listening to true crime podcasts or watching documentaries on the dateline and seeing this kind of shit happening all the time exactly this was not something that anybody was thinking about no you know

But here's the thing.

When they woke up several hours later, Mark still wasn't back.

And they decided that under the circumstances, it didn't seem wise just to keep waiting for him to show back up.

So that afternoon, March 15th, they all together went to the South Padre Island Police Department and they filed a missing persons report, including every relevant detail that they could remember from the night before.

Now, during spring break, the usually quiet South Padre community had learned to brace itself for an increase in everything that comes with the increase in the number of visitors, from hotel bookings to also reports of criminal activity.

So Mark wasn't necessarily the first person to be reported missing during spring break.

He wasn't even the first person actually reported missing that week.

That's wild.

Yeah.