Please help: Missing person

[admin]

Hi All,

I have been contacted by a very nervous father looking for his son.
His sons name is Matt Hygh and he is 19 years of age. He is missing from the San Diego area since last Tuesday.

He has told friends he may want to live out an Into The Wild experience.
Matt, if you are on this forum, please contact your Dad.

More information at facebook.com/findmatthygh

Sincerely,
Adam (admin)

[SteveSalmon]

~SS

[pezar]

The page says that he was sighted in Indio, near Salton City. Chris camped there, and it's possible Matt is headed to Anza-Borrego. According to the page, the weather in the desert has been colder than normal. I keep thinking of how Chris abandoned the Datsun at Detrital Wash, near Lake Mead. Has anybody checked Lake Mead? A green car should be easy to spot, especially in the desert.

[GoNorth]

Well, I don't know.
I mean, of course I understand that his parents are worried, but hey, this guy is 19 years old and has all the right in the world to live his life the way he chooses.
I just looked on facebook and read stuff like "Law Enforcement Officials have confirmed seeing Matthew..." or "The El Cajon Police keep widening the net ..." WTF?
Did he commit any crime? Or is there any suspicion he became a crime victim? Well, if none of this is the case and the parents however asked authorities to help them find their adult son, maybe he left them for a good reason.

[pezar]

Well, as we all know, Chris had damn good reasons for cutting his folks out of his life. I don't want to judge this situation, but maybe Matt did too. Then again, most 19 year olds who go into the wild seem to have some romantic fantasy of going into the woods and dying for the sake of nature or something. I partially blame those who have deliberately romanticized Chris's journey for their own selfish reasons. We can look at the SOS note Chris left at the bus a few days before he died, to see how scared he was. There's not much to forage for on the bajada, if that's where Matt is headed.

I can't help thinking that this family must be big shots in their town, if they have the cops chasing a runaway 19 year old. I find it strange that the FB page doesn't have the license plate number of the Hyundai Matt is driving. Even if Matt took off the plates, or hasn't registered the car, CA cops can easily spot that (CA renewal stickers are distinctive colors, different for each year) and pull him over.

I noticed that there's a lot of overt evangelical-type Christianity on the FB page, quoting the Bible all the time, stuff like that. Could this be rooted in religion, if Matt didn't want to have anything to do with his folks' evangelical beliefs, and they pushed a little too hard? I think Go North is right, and we're not getting the whole story, just like the ITW book didn't mention Walt's drunken rages.

[GoNorth]

I noticed that there's a lot of overt evangelical-type Christianity on the FB page, quoting the Bible all the time, stuff like that.

Yes, I found that quite strange as well.
But then again, maybe we just didn’t get the start of the whole story right. I mean, if originally Matt just disappeared all of a sudden without anyone having any idea what might have happened or whether anything happened to him, of course it’s normal to start a search after a certain time. So perhaps they learned about his “into the wild” plans only while seeking him.
But if they find our found out that he is still fine and just travelling around somewhere and has thus not been kidnapped or whatever by anyone, I don’t see the point in further searching for him.
And to me it looks like they know by now that he left by choice, see on FB “Law Enforcement Officials have confirmed seeing Matthew driving his car in Indio, CA on March 15 around 11pm.” (that was 2 days after he disappeared).
I mean, what will they do if they catch him camping somewhere in the desert or hanging out with people in Slab city or wherever? Arrest him? Of course they can’t. But they can annoy him and make him feel persecuted, which might also lead to him making more uncompromising decisions for his further trip, in order to defend his freedom.
Well, of course that’s all just speculation. Whatever happens, I just hope the guy is doing fine and that he will be able to live his own personal adventure to the extent he chooses, and hopefully be a bit more careful than Chris was in the end.

[admin]

Great comments guys.
I also do not know the background on this missing person and what the circumstances were, but I hope he is doing ok and if he is enjoying a roadtrip experience, then I hope he also contacts his family.

I tried to leave home (runaway) when I was about 13. Got as far as the end of the street and hid behind bushes for a few hours!
Whenever my 6 year old hides, I always get scared, so I know how it feels to be a father and to be worried.

Cheers, Adam

[pezar]

Good news! Matt has been FOUND, he is alive and safe. Found via Google:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/144466595.html

He was sleeping in his car in the inner-ring LA suburb of Downey, reading a C.S. Lewis book when found. He also had a Bible with him. According to NBC San Diego, he told his "rescuers" that he was ready to come home. Downey is a rough area for a white guy-I have relatives in nearby Norwalk, and it's not a place a white guy wants to be out on the streets after dark. But yes, Matt is fine and safe at home.

[GoNorth]

Thanks for the link.
I had already read on facebook that he had been found and that everybody was now happy that he's back, however, as we had suspected, it seemed he had "disappeared" by choice and thus the whole research action was misplaced in my opinion.
The FB account has been deleted in the meantime, by the way.

[pezar]

In Matt's own words, from his hometown newspaper in Lansing, Michigan:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20120328/NEWS01/303270037/Missing-DeWitt-man-Dad-m-ready-come-home-

Inspired by Chris, he drove to Slab City, then to inner-city Los Angeles. He was troubled by the contradiction he saw between the Christian values he was taught at home, church, and school and the typical life of a college student. As some of us know, Chris was haunted by a similar dichotomy, going to church to learn about Jesus on one hand, then coming home to Walt's drunken rants in which Walt claimed to be God.

Matt had apparently chosen San Diego to be close to a girl he met on the net. Although he doesn't say, I'm guessing she dumped him, sparking all this. Matt's dad Tim Hygh works as a golf tournament and golf resort booker for a branch of the PGA. So, a well off family, maybe as well off as the McCandlesses. Matt had planned to travel for a year, but folded after two weeks, calling his dad and asking to come home. Matt was totally unprepared for life on the road, and likely just ran out of cash.

The whole story reminds me of Che Guevara, who took off on a motorcycle to "liberate" Latin America's poor after getting rejected by his dream girl. Guevara's family was very wealthy, and Guevara was training to be a doctor. Che inspired everything from the disappearances of thousands of young baby boomers, many of who were never found, to the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

Kids, don't choose a college based on hormones.