WEST FRANKFORT—The friends and family of a West Frankfort man have been reaching out to media and through social networking sites in an effort to discover his whereabouts.
But so far, there have only been unconfirmed sightings of Christopher Smith, said to be in his late 20s-early 30s 36-37 years old, these occurring in and around Marion…and no one has been able to offer an explanation of why any of this has happened at all.
Chris Smith
In fact, the details being given to media or placed on the networking sites are scant, which in and of itself creates problems: Only today did we learn that Smith (we’re still trying to find out his exact age) was last seen on Monday, July 8, 2013, at 11 a.m., ostensibly by his wife, Amanda, although we’ve not confirmed that, going for a walk, away from their West Frankfort home. This, friends of his have told us, isn’t unusual; often, in order to sort things out in his head if there’s any kind of stress going on in his life, Smith would take his guitar and go for a walk, to clear his head, have some solitude, and sort things out. He has been described to us as very devout in his church (we’re working on which one that is), and as a very dedicated husband and father (he has six children), so the premise that he would go on one of his walks and just keep walking is a weak one.
Chris and Amanda Smith
Apparently a missing persons reports was made after Smith had been gone 12 hours, which isn’t standard, and which is probably why police didn’t take the report seriously (generally speaking, an adult needs to be missing for 48 hours before the law will take such a report seriously, simply because of all the walk-aways going on). But it appears that West Frankfort police are indeed taking the matter seriously enough now, and at last report they were alerting other agencies of Smith’s disappearance.
As of this morning, many reports of Smith—who is fortunately distinct-looking—have come in as generated out of the Marion area. What he might be doing there is unknown. Smith was last known to be wearing a black ball cap, brown shirt, gray shorts, and white shoes with black stripes on them. He may or may not have been carrying his guitar. Anyone who believes they’ve sighted Smith is urged to contact local law enforcement. There have been numerous tragedies over the past few years in the area as they regard missing persons, including Beth Bentley, Joel Moore and Ed Hataway, and the family of Chris Smith is hoping that this one can stay out of that realm and bring him home safe and sound.