The mother of a Canadian man who has been missing for nearly three months is trying to get to the U.S. to search for her son, who she believes is suffering from mental trauma following a car accident late last year.
Tracy Beeso-Robichaud, of Burlington, Ont. is desperate to locate her son, Ryan Robichaud, who disappeared from the family home on Jan. 15.
The 23-year-old warehouse worker went missing just a few weeks after being involved in a “near-death” car accident on New Year’s Eve near Burlington. Following the crash, her son became withdrawn. Beeso-Robichaud believes the accident triggered post-traumatic stress disorder, which she said may be the reason why he left home.
“He became distant,” Besso-Robichaud said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca on Tuesday. “When I spoke to him, he would look at me, and then 10 minutes later, he would look at me and say, ‘What did you say?’”
On Jan. 15, Besso-Robichaud returned to her house to find clothes thrown all over the place, and Ryan gone. At first, she and her three other sons thought that maybe he had gone snowboarding, as he had been trying to plan a trip with friends. But, she said, it would be strange for Ryan not to inform her or even leave a note telling her that he was going to be away.
Four days later, Besso-Robichaud received a call from her son, who sounded confused and afraid. “He said, ‘Mom, I need to hear your voice.’”
Beeso-Robichaud said he told her that he “died that day in the accident, 'I look in the mirror and I see Ryan, but my brain isn’t my own.’”
As she spoke with her son, she became increasingly scared, Beeso-Robichaud recalled, her voice cracking with emotion.
Beeso-Robichaud traced the call to a hotel in Boston, Mass. The hotel informed her that she had just missed her son, who had checked out of his room.
Ryan had been driving a rental car provided by an insurance company following his accident, so Beeso-Robichaud also contacted the car rental company. They also confirmed that her son was in Boston: He had dropped off the car at a local rental station. The rental company had in turn, given Ryan a lift to a train station, his mother was informed.
“I said, ‘I hope to God that he’s maybe making his way back here,'” Beeso-Robichaud said.
A few days later, Ryan called Beeso-Robichaud from a Staples store in Los Angeles. “He said, ‘I don’t feel right, something’s wrong,’” Beeso-Robichaud said.
Able to convince her son to put a Staples employee on the phone, the store then contacted police, who arrived in minutes.
The family was able to purchase a plane ticket for Ryan that would take him from Los Angeles International Airport to Toronto, so the officers dropped him off at LAX. Beeso-Robichaud said she and her other sons “waited for hours” at Pearson International Airport, but Ryan never arrived. They later learned he never boarded the plane.
The last time Beeso-Robichaud spoke with her son was in late January. In the meantime, she’s been tracing his actions through credit card statements, but she said the last transaction appears to have taken place on Feb. 15.
“I don’t think he has anything anymore, I think he just has the clothes on his back,” she said.
On Feb. 18, she received in the mail a baptismal certificate for Ryan from a church in Huntington Beach, Calif. She contacted the pastor, who informed her that he had “prayed with Ryan” and baptized him. All he had with him, the pastor told Beeso-Robichaud, was a backpack and roll-up mat.
On March 19, after receiving some unconfirmed sighting reports in Westminster, a city located in the Long Beach area of California, Beeso-Robichaud filed a report with the local police department.
The Westminster Police Department is now investigating her son’s disappearance as a missing persons case and is circulating a poster with two photos of Ryan.
We need your help locating another missing person. The most recent sighting was in Westminster where he was seen pushing...
Posted by Westminster Police Department, CA on Wednesday, April 6, 2016
According to police, the most recent sighting was on March 18. Police said Ryan appeared thinner than his 140-lb frame and was pushing a shopping cart.
Westminster Police Department Det. Norma Vasquez said her department has been getting the word out via flyers and stories in local newspapers. Officers are following up on sighting reports “as much as we can,” Vasquez said, but unfortunately people contact them days after a possible sighting.
“It’s never anyone calling and saying, ‘He’s here right now’,” Vasquez said over the phone from California.
She said the department has also asked police in surrounding counties to be on alert.
“Our units are aware and they’re reminded every day that this guy is missing and to please be on the lookout for him,” Vasquez said.
While Beeso-Robichaud said that she has also received messages over Facebook from people who think they have seen Ryan, she needs to get a “positive ID.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Beeso-Robichaud raise enough money to travel to California and search for her son.
“We’re very desperate to find my son,” Beeso-Robichaud said. “We’re just so scared for him.”
