Erick Djerf

My good friend Erick has been missing since August 10th. His family notified me today. He was supposed to take his mother to a doctor's appointment, but never showed up, which is completely unlike him. Instead, he went camping by the Rio Grande, near Ft. Hancock, which is an area used extensively by the Mexican Drug Cartel to smuggle drugs into the US.

Erick is not an outdoorsman--he's an artist, a jazz musician, and a chili afficianado--I have a link to his website on the blog. Camping and hiking are not things that he does, yet he set up a tent 8 miles off the highway. Erick's camp was found with everything still in it on Tuesday morning, after his mother and sister filed a missing person's report. The Border Patrol said that he had stopped and asked if he could camp at the spot at which they found his belongings.

Erick suffers from bipolar disorder. He had grown his hair long, but cut it right before the trip, but that may have been because school was starting in a week (he's a teacher). He left sticky-notes all over his apartment, telling his mom he loved her, asking that this or that be given to particular people. He left his cell phone, apt keys and other things one normally takes, but took clothing and the cat's food--but the cat was found outside the apartment. She's an indoor cat and beloved. Maybe he was taking her with him and she got away, and he left without her?

I talked to Ranger Shaw, who is in charge of the investigation. He is pretty convinced that Erick wasn't contemplating suicide, but was either going away to start a new life somewhere, or just needed to get away for a little while. He had gigs lined up, school was starting, and he was very involved in a lot of new church programs as well as art and music events. Taking the cat food and clothing isn't indicative of suicide. That is encouraging. Ranger Shaw pointed out that although Erick has had a tough time in life, he has always been a fighter and succeeded in getting around, over or through any obstacle.

Still, something is terribly wrong. The Border Patrol and Texas Rangers have been searching for Erick for a week using horses, dogs and helicopters. His tracks lead to the river, but the dogs have not scented an exit point. Kristen said that the Patrol and the Rangers plan to continue their search for another week. Obviously and unfortunately, our law enforcement can't go into Mexico to search for him.

Please keep Erick, his sister Kristen and his mom in your thoughts. I hope that this is just a bipolar episode and that they will find him safe somewhere. I'm very afraid that it's not.