On May 10th, 1997, a 20-year-old Wichita Falls man vanished.
“That just wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t just disappear like that without letting them know,” Detective Brad Love said. Nearly 19 years after Gregory Keith Mann, Jr. disappeared, his family still has no answers. “It turned us upside down, so it’s been really hard,” Greg Mann, Keith’s father said.
Going by his middle name, Keith graduated from Rider High School and was a good baseball player. “You know he was just a well-liked young man,” Debra Mann, Keith’s mother said.
He was engaged to be married. His parents said he and his fiance had just moved into an apartment on Barnett Road prior to his disappearance, but on Mother’s Day weekend in 1997, something went wrong. Keith’s fiance returned from out of town to an empty apartment.
“They were supposed to come over for a luncheon and bring me a gift, and she called and said is Keith over there with you? We’re like no. We hadn’t seen him since Friday night,” Debra said.
Detective Love said Keith had gone out with some friends that night and was dropped off at his home around 11:45 pm. Authorities said he was last seen walking up the stairs to his apartment.
“We were hoping that maybe he just went to the lake with some buddies, had some car trouble, something that you could explain so we just all sat here, and we just waited and we waited and we’re still waiting,” Debra said.
Keith worked for Ron Roberts Ford, and the demo car he was driving was found the following afternoon near his parents home. “We know somebody knows something,” Greg said, but almost two decades, later their hope of finding him alive is dwindling.
“We can only hope, but we fear that since it’s been so long that probably something did happen to him all that time ago, and just for one reason or another, it just hasn’t been found out yet,” Debra said.
What the family wants most is closure. “I want to find him. I don’t care. I want to know where he’s at, and then we’ll figure it out from there. I want to find him. I want to know,” Greg said.
Keith’s 39th birthday was yesterday. The family is working on age progression photo to be released soon. The Mann family said the reward for information on Keith’s disappearance has reached $8,000 and is expected to rise. For more information on his case head to www.TheMissingMannProject.com or Facebook.
If you have any information about this case, call Detective Brad Love at (940) 761-7917 or Crime Stoppers at (940) 322-9888.
– Newschannel 6
