Eric Lichtblau

And then it started up all over again that December break.

When Blaze was, again, home from school from Penn.

And this time it went a step further.

And there were a bunch of back and forth online exchanges.

And this time it went a step further with Sam saying, hey, why don't we get together?

just want to catch up and see how things are going.

And Blaze had been hesitant to do that the first time around.

And this time he sent him his address, said, okay, fine, let's, you know, go meet up.

And so Sam came by and

and picked up Blaze at his house, and they went off to a park together near Blaze's home, and they just walked around for a little bit, and that was the last anyone saw of Blaze alive, unfortunately.

He did not.

Yeah, there was immediately this search.

Blaze was supposed to be at the dentist the next day, and he was going to meet his mom for lunch and doesn't show up.

So there's immediately this search effort.

And in fact, it pretty quickly became a full-scale Southern California search effort with Blaze.

Kobe Bryant tweeting stuff out because there was a crossover in their church to Kobe Bryant.

And so it became, you know, a very quickly and all, all hands on deck search kind of thing, friends in their living room, you know, looking for every lead they can.

And then, uh, his younger sister manages to crack into his phone and discover this name of someone who had been in touch that night, um,

whose name they didn't know, which was Sam Woodward, and that puts a different spin on things, and they did reach him, and Sam gives this cover story, really, of having seen him that night, but then left him in the park, and Blaze having gone off to meet a third friend, and not having seen him again that night, and supposedly having then gone back

hours later to see if he could find him.