A Texas father of two disappeared last week after leaving for an early morning walk — and relatives say a disturbing detail alerted his distraught wife that something was wrong.
Colby Richards, 31, was last seen on the morning of May 26 at his home in Musgrave Place, The Woodlands. FOX 26 Houston reported.
Richards, an engineer and part-time baseball coach, usually got up for work at 5 or 6 a.m., his wife Kelly told the outlet.
Last Friday, however, Kelly woke up to find her husband gone and the family’s gate open, prompting her to call the police.
“She was waiting for him to come back to bed and he didn’t,” said Allison Fox, Richards’ cousin, a family spokeswoman. the courier.
“[Callie] Noticed it was getting light and she went down to check on him and he wasn’t down. He goes to the yard many times and he was not there but he noticed that the gate was open. “
Richard often went on walks without his phone, but Fox explained to the US Sun Friday’s pre-work walk looked different.
“I would say it’s unusual for him to leave and not say, ‘Hey I’m going for a walk,'” she said.
“Especially given that he had to go to work in the morning.”
Officers walking behind the family’s home eventually found a water bottle identified as Richards’, but no other evidence to point to his whereabouts.
Foxx told the outlet that Kelly Richards is “just as shocked” by her husband’s sudden disappearance as the rest of the family.
“He kind of walked out and didn’t say anything,” she said.
On Tuesday, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office led an ongoing search. Courier said local volunteers were out on foot, bicycles, ATVs and even on horseback.
Kelly Richards told FOX 26 over the weekend that she is struggling to explain her husband’s absence to her three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.
“My daughter knows,” she said.
“Initially, we tried to keep it quiet until we got more information, but she knows. She is asking questions, like sick questions. He is very smart. He is very aware of what is going on. My son is teasing me. “
Within a day of her husband’s disappearance, Kelly wrote that she was suspending comments On his post about the search due to “misinformation and insensitive comments.”
“What’s frustrating and what’s fueling online speculation is that there’s very little to go on,” Fox told the Courier.
“There’s very little to go on and we’re desperate to find something that will give us more ideas about where to work.”
Richards is described as 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds with blue eyes and dark blonde hair.
Jake Stovall of Gulf Search and Rescue assured the outlet that he believes Richards is alive.
“It’s search and rescue, it’s not recovery. We absolutely believe he’s still alive, he’s still out there, and he needs help to come home, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
