Missing Marine, Eric Hall

I am using my blog as a way to get information across to anyone that may casually glance at my pages. I hope out of all of my post this is the one that does the most good. this is information about a former classmate, Eric Hall. He is a former Marine who has been missing since the beginning of the month and the search is now nationwide. The following is an article that has updated information about what they have learned so far. I ask that you spread the word some how even if you just copy and paste this some where. Every bit of help is appreciated!!!!


Search for missing Marine now nationwide
(Last updated: February 14, 2008 5:31 PM)

By GREG MARTIN
Staff Writer

A search team's bloodhound working to track a disabled former Marine who disappeared while suffering a “flashback” from his aunt's Deep Creek home 12 days ago led his handler to an area where tractor-trailer trucks park behind a Port Charlotte gas station Wednesday night.

That suggests the missing man, Eric W. Hall, 24, could have caught a ride with a trucker and departed the area, theorized Mike Bodah, executive director for the Southwest Florida K-9 Search Unit.

However, Bodah emphasized that the dogs can't tell him what happened to Hall. The handlers can only try to interpret the way the dogs are acting, he explained.

“The dogs can see things we can't,” he said.

So, he said the team has advised the Hall family it would be prudent to continue local search operations until Eric's location is confirmed. The team also offered to return to conduct more tracking, if another area of interest is identified, Bodah said.

Meanwhile, the missing man's family and others are taking steps to expand the search to both more local areas and nationwide, according to Becky Hall, Eric's mother.

“We just want him to let us know he's okay and he's not hurt,” said his mother. “That's the big thing.”

Sheriff's deputies and volunteers, many of them combat veterans who empathize with Hall, have been trying to locate him since Feb. 3, when he left his aunt's house on his motorcycle.

The motorcycle and his helmet were found in a wooded area off Sulstone Drive a short while later. But, Hall hasn't been seen since.

After serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Hall was medically retired from the Marines after getting seriously injured by a roadside bomb in Fallujah in June 2005.

His mental state had deteriorated recently, according to a Charlotte County Sheriff's report. He had been acting like he was shooting an invisible gun at people who were not in the house, and stated that people were “coming to get him,” the family told deputies.

Earlier Wednesday, the K-9 team tracked Hall in a circle around the area where his motorcycle was abandoned. The team also put the dogs on a trail in a wooded area behind the Visani comedy club.

From there, the dogs led the team north on the sidewalk along Kings Highway to a commercial area at Peachland Boulevard.

After one of the dogs, a bloodhound named “George,” tracked Hall's scent to a truck parking area behind the Shell Station, the team put two other dogs, a bloodhound named “Clark” and a yellow lab named “Hutch,” on the trail consecutively, and they seemed to confirm the results.

All three dogs first cut through a Burger King restaurant's parking lot, then circled around the gas station, then around the Waffle House restaurant.

All three then ended up stopping between two semi trucks behind the gas station, said Bodah. The trucks had their engines idling as if that was a place they could park to rest, he said.

“So, what we can say is that the track ends there at this point in time,” he said. “Does that mean that he got into a semi truck? I can't answer that question. But we have advised the family it would perhaps be wise to put flyers out at truck stops.”

The searches have helped rule out some possibilities, Becky Hall indicated.

“There's one thing we can say, we found no evidence that he's out there (in the woods) roaming around,” she said.

Volunteers are now putting up flyers about Eric's disappearance along U.S. 41, she said.

Also, the family is exploring whether an alert for truckers to be on the lookout for Eric could be broadcast on “trucker radio,” Becky Hall said.

The family has also listed Eric as missing with the Cue Center for Missing Persons, a national organization, she said.

Some of the efforts are coming unsolicited.

Ronald A. Salvi of North Port said he contacted his daughter, a media chief for the U.S. Marines at the Pentagon, after reading stories about the search for Hall.

“The Marines now have a nationwide lookout and alert for him,” Salvi said, in an e-mail to the Sun.

An attempt to contact his daughter, Sgt. Christina C. Delai, for comment was unsuccessful.

Thomas “Cajun” McCarthy, a local advocate for homeless people who has volunteered to help search, suggested the family also contact major truck stops because they have a system to advertise information to truckers nationwide.

In fact, the company Transcore provides such digital display advertising at 1,200 truck stops nationwide at a cost of $500 for two weeks. Typically, the system is used to notify truckers where they could find loads to haul, but it is also used to locate missing trucks, and sometimes, people, said Melissa Tooley, company spokeswoman.

The Southwest Florida K-9 team has assisted area police agencies in numerous searches, including one about a year ago for an ill man who walked away from a Fort Myers nursing home. The dogs led their handlers to a bus stop, Bodah said.

The team notified Fort Myers Police who checked with the bus driver, who said he dropped the man off at a Walmart store. The police then went to the store.

“They found him lying on a bench in diabetic shock,” Bodah said.

“We have tremendous confidence in our dogs,” he said. “That being said, dogs are sometimes like people; on any particular day, you just don't know, depending on the weather, the wind, whether they're going to be able to pick up the scent.”

The team, which has traveled as far as Indiana to conduct searches, works on on a volunteer basis. Bodah earns his living as a certified public accountant.

“We love to be with our dogs and that's certainly a part of it,” he said. “But in the end, it's really and truly about trying to unite people with their families.

“I can't tell you the satisfaction involved even when you find a body,” he added. “People want their loved ones home.”

People with information about Eric Hall's location can call Becky Hall at (502)500-7732 or the Sheriff's Office at (941)639-0013