My son is missing

On Feb. 8, 2017, my son Daniel Foster disappeared. He was living in Barrio Logan and had planned to meet a friend at 10 a.m. that day for a ride to a doctor’s appointment in Anza. He never showed up; and Dan has not been seen or heard from since.

I flew out to San Diego from my home in New Hampshire in March of last year, hoping to piece together the puzzle of my son’s life. It is a complicated one, involving dessert cannabis grows and the whispered word “cartel,” seedy topless joints, abandoned gold mines, and a 100-year flood.

Daniel’s story would be great fodder for a detective novel, except that he isn’t a fictional character. He is my son.

Daniel is 29. He is not a child. He can come and go as he pleases.

These are the facts that many police officers, and a few ordinary citizens, have been kind enough to share with me since I began searching for my son. These reminders are frank and honest, but also unrealistic and painfully dismissive. When a person who has close ties to friends and family just vanishes one day, it is abnormal. It just is. And it should be treated as such.

I don’t believe Dan was a victim of the opioid and meth epidemics that has turned a section of Downtown San Diego into a scene from “The Walking Dead.” He wasn’t an urban camper. He had a girlfriend and close friends, brothers he texted often, and a dog named Apollo. One day he was wishing a friend happy birthday on Facebook, the next day he was gone.

But the truth is, I don’t know where my son is, which means he could be anywhere. I was told early on by an investigator that it is likely that he’s dead, a victim of foul play, but that’s a theory that has yet to be proven.

The investigative work necessary to determine if that theory holds water has not been done. The San Diego Sheriff’s office has more pressing matters to attend to, which I understand, yet bitterly resent. Riverside County investigators have been helpful, but they, too, could devote only a limited amount of time and resources to Dan’s disappearance. I have done my best to complete the puzzle of my son’s life in order to determine where he’s gone, but there are just too many pieces missing, and I don’t know where to find them.

In writing to you, it is my hope that after a year of fear and grief, someone might give me an idea of where to look. I don’t know what else to do.

For more information, please visit facebook.com/FindDanielFoster.

Thank you.

—Nancy Bean Foster, via email

Editor’s Note: We received this letter from Daniel Foster’s mother just before the one year anniversary of his disappearance, but it was too late to run in our February issue. We hope readers may have some information. We have Ms. Foster’s address and phone number for anyone who has any relevant leads. Contact us at [email protected].