I'm living a real life Unsolved Mystery

Wow! Sorry to hear that. I know nothing about private investigating, but I do wish you luck!

Why not contact hie family, OP?

Mark Sherlock, my friend, came from England. We are the closest thing to family that he has. The hospital will tell us nothing at all.

Does Mark Sherlock know a Jeremy Holmes? I feel he might.

Does anyone know what happens to the body of someone who dies in the hospital? Is it not sent to the coroner?

R5, No, all bodies aren't sent to the coroner. If the person died in the hospital, they would normally assume they know the cause of death, so there would be no investigation, unless the patient were a victim of crime, in which case, a coroner would gather evidence should a trial come later.

OP, I wish I knew how to help. You might be surprised what you're able to find on your own, though. If someone has decided to leave their old life behind, and start a new one, it's amazing what can be done to erase one's history.

Could be one of those witness relocation deals, in which case best for him if you stop digging.

I’m sorry, OP.

Maybe he was deported (was he a citizen? He is from England but has a SSN?) Do you know why he was transported to the hospital/what was the ailment or emergency? How did you even know he was there? Have you tried filing a missing persons report with authorities? I understand that HIPAA laws prevent lots of information being disclosed, but surely they can tell law enforcement if he’s deceased.

And was he employed? Maybe his employer knows something.

not to sound flip, but at a certain point who cares? if he has disappeared , you cant make him reappear and if he wanted to contact you he would . If it were family , probably the need to know would be stronger but again, unless criminal intent is suspected, let it go.

Did your friend own his residence or rent ?

I'm not trying to be funny or nasty here but know they have dentists, clinics, lawyers that people can pay on a sliding scale depending on their income. Do they have any PIs that work that way?

He’s fine. He sends his love.

What about a death certificate? Aren’t DC public record?

start with filing a missing persons report,

OP, start with where he lived. His landlord or neighbors will know or heard something. Let me know and w can go from there.

If he has a social security number, he will be easy to trace through Lexis-Nexis type data bases. Any competent PI should be able to get you some info if you pay him/her.

We want to find Mark in order to help him. His medical ailments make him unable to work. His former landlady claims she called North Hollywood Police Station to report him missing. I tried to order a death certificate through an online service, but they need the exact date of death. Social Security is notified by funeral directors when they receive bodies, but Social Security Death Index doesn't have deaths within the last 3 years. Thanks for all your help, truly grateful I am. I will take your advice to try and locate a PI who may charge me less than full fee.

Raptured.

You were left behind.

Contact his family. File a missing persons report.

[quote] The hospital will not tell us anything at all.

Did they confirm he had been a patient?

Perhaps you could call and claim to be a relative. You might have better luck.

The hospital will give information to immediate family.

You can call and pretend you are.

He might have an obit in an English paper, in his hometown, if his parents stil live there. I’d search or call papers wherever his parents live.

Sorry to hear, OP. I’m a good sleuth, but came up empty. They problem is that it’s so soon after he went missing.

Maybe some TV show in England will pick up the story about this missing man and they will pay to investigate. It's worth trying with a phone call or two.

Op find out how to access Nexis and look up by SSN

I would love to access Nexis. Is there a lawyer in the house? clenoir0927@msn.com

OP, call the County Medical Examiner's office in the county the hospital is located in. They take in the bodies when there are no known next of kin. Part of their job is then to track down next of kin, in hopes of getting them to take responsibility for the remains. When they are unsuccessful, the bodies are eventually handled at county expense.

In other words, they'd be grateful to hear from someone looking for information, because if your friend did die, and the hospital had no emergency contact information, his body ended up at the Medical Examiner's office, and they want to get his case resolved.

If that county's office has no record, start calling adjacent county offices.

Another possibility is to post what information you have on your friend on Twitter, ask it to be retweeted. Post it on Facebook, too. People and pets have been found that way.

Don't pay for access to those online people-finder websites. Most of them have a hodge-podge of accurate and inaccurate information, much of it far out of date. Worse yet, most of them keep billing your credit card. If you want to use one, go directly to Intelius, which is one of the more reputable sites. But you might want to call a private investigator and ask what they'd charge just to run a records check for you. No legwork involved, they just access the databases they subscribe to. You just might be able to afford that.

Good luck.

Incidentally, one of my sisters was tracked down by our county's Medical Examiner's office through a nifty piece of online sleuthwork. It turned out they'd found remains in our dead aunt's house, and they knew it wasn't our aunt, because her body had come to their office a decade previously. They didn't know she was related to us (as part of the search for a relative of this new set of remains, they'd found a church bulletin online that mentioned a mass held for our aunt, so they called the church, who said my sister had paid for the mass, so they gave the M.E. my sister's phone number, who confirmed she was related to my aunt - the house was still in her name).

We told them it had to be her son, who was mentally ill and a recluse. We never saw him in our lives, because he hid every time we visited our aunt. There were no dental records for him (he never went anywhere), and he'd been dead for roughly five months, so the remains weren't identifiable. They said they couldn't afford to DNA test every unknown body that hit their office, so once we assured them he was a recluse and thus wouldn't have had anyone else in the house with him, they agreed to call it him. And then they tried to get us to take the body. Instead, we gave them contact information for his sisters ,who lived in other states. Neither one wanted to get involved, in fact the Houston police had to be sent to the first sister's door because she kept hanging up on the Medical Examiner when he called her. It was an incredible clusterfuck and it went on for the better part of a year.

Call Inside Edition.

....

So this guy I stalked disappeared but no one will tell me where he is...

How can he have a SS number if he is from England? Explain please.

find a grave.com

A missing person, why won't cops help?

Have Medical Records look up his record and see what was don't to him. There should be a discharge plan. Say his doctor made a mistake ova doctor did...then they just disposed of the body , no lawsuits.

Either you have the legal right to the information or you don’t. If you do, get a court order. If you don’t, then give it up.

Chances are good the hospital shredded the paperwork when they dumped the body.

Witness Protection Program

With his SS# and name, could you try to pull a credit report on Credit Karma or something similar? You would be able to see if he opened new accts, had any credit inquiries, and if we was keeping up with his bills.

OP, if your friend was unemployed, on disability benefits and Medicaid, it is possible that his paperwork trail got tangled in the internal system.

This happened to an elderly client of mine in the 1980s. Yes, all data is computerised now, but protocols can still mess things up.

My client was under the care of her local Council on Aging social workers (where she lived in Elderly Housing) and my community based social services agency (which provided homemaker aid with shopping, house cleaning, laundry, etc. and casework monitoring.) My agency was not notified that she had been admitted to the hospital for a heart related problem. Several weeks later I had a phone call from the hospital social worker who was cordially inquiring about that client. This, in and of itself, was a red flag, as the hospital social workers were consistently arrogant and rather dismissive in contacts with our case managers. I was surprised to learn the client had been hospitalised, so the call ended with no further resolution. Two subsequent calls from that same social worker, digging for any next of kin information, led nowhere aside from perplexing me more. The client in question had no next of kin on any of her records with us or the COA, though she had told me outlandish stories about her relatives, which included the then-governor of our state. She was clearly mentally ill (documented) so we all accepted this relative as a fabrication. That said, I reported this lone possible though unlikely next of kin to the hospital social worker.

On the fourth call, the hospital social worker 'fessed up.' Sounding quite relieved, she explained that the client had died of a heart attack in hospital, but then her body went missing for several weeks. No one could locate a paperwork trail, whether the body was claimed by family, etc. That was when she had called me. She was forbade from telling me the reason for her inquiring calls but desperate for answers as the liability landed in her office.

It turned out that the client, at some point, had designated that her body was to be left to Harvard Medical School. This might have been when she was an inpatient at a state mental hospital, at the time of her release, when Reagan era deinstitutionalisation took effect. We would not have been provided with any record of such information. The Harvard Medical School was affiliated with the hospital where she died. It took a while, but her grave location was finally confirmed with documentation provided by the Medical School. All donors without next of kin were buried in one designated graveyard in a specified area.

The best part of this, and also the saddest, is that she was such an outlandish storyteller she would have loved best to be able to regale others with the story of how her body got lost for a while and the madness that ensued. I like to think she wanted to matriculate at Harvard after earning her school of hard knocks final degree here.

OP, it might be something as convoluted but as ultimately simple as the situation I described. Once I had the answers I put the case to rest. The weird thing is that I unknowingly met her great niece 9 years later. After a year or so we discovered we both had a connection to my old client, based on her unusual last name. Her backstory was very tragic due to no real fault of her own, and she'd ostracised herself from all of her family and they lost track of her, though they tried to find her. I was able to give her only living relatives information about how to locate her grave, which brought them eventual peace and closure. In other words, do what you can now, lay it to rest once you get all the information you can, within reason. Then let it go, which is not easy. You never know what might open up down the road.

I already checked find-a-grave for OP. He’s not there. I also checked genealogybank dot com that has obits, but it stops in 2016.

OP, I like the suggestions upthread to use Intelius, and then as R35 wrote, pull a credit report. As you describe it, it reads like your friend must have died.

I signed-up for unlimited reports on Intelius for a month once, and then used it to snoop on a slew of people. I did find that my missing friend (my main purpose in signing up) was still alive. Strangely, we met, but she died within the year, and she was only 51. Her mother called me to say she died. A terrible chore for a parent.

R36 oh my god! Really?

He was always a bit of a bounder and a drunk...

R38, yes really. A weird true story all the way through. The client's backstory was as odd as her final chapter, from just pre-death and then many years later when I randomly met her great niece.

You mention that his landlady had called the police to report him missing. I would start with her.

1. How did he pay his rent? Did he have a bank? Does she know the name of the bank? When did she last see him (exact date)? How did he go to the hospital - by ambulance? Name of ambulance company?

2. Collect whatever detailed information you have about him: his birthdate, where he lived (complete address), full name of landlady, when he came to the US, his place of birth, name of parents, family, etc. Details, details, details.

2. Where is his passport? Does the landlady have it? Is it among his possessions? If you can get the passport, I would photocopy (multiple copies) all the information. Hang onto the actual passport. Give copies to others. The passport may be the only tangible item you have. Once you pass it on to someone else (police, etc.) you will never see it again and if they bungle things, you have even less to go on.)

3. Go to the police and file a formal missing person report, providing whatever details you have.

4. I would also report him missing to the local British authorities which might give the police an extra encouragement to find your friend.

Good luck.

Call Interpol!

Also, the Mossad knows everything, check with them.

Maybe the British have a dossier on him?

In this case, no R42. Sorry.

OP, I jest, as we do here, but I am actually sorry about your friend. I’m 57, and when I look up my old friends on a lark, I find so many of them are dead, it’s ...just sad. Even the seemingly healthy ones, no drugs, old parents, etc. life is a crap shoot.

But as you describe it, the man either went back to his family, or he passed away. Your City/town must keep death records!

You might have to lie to the coroner or police and say you’re family. If you’re not mental, no harm there. Is that a crime?

My Grandpa Otto died in 1927. I could put up a marker (there is none), or re-use the grave for more family, if I got every descendants’s approval. Well, my family of 7 can’t decide on a table at a restaurant, so I doubt that ever happening. Plus there are cousins, who probably have a different Dad, anyway.

I can’t afford a marker as it’s too expensive (with fees and all their restrictions, maybe $7000 - they want 100 year’s of maintenance fees!) But if I did put up a marker, I’d just lie and say, ‘oh, it’s just me”. Nobody has visited the grave since at least 1950. I'm the only one who cares.

R46 got issues

R46

Are you sure you need permission of all descendants? That sounds extreme.

Is this a religious cemetery? Where my family are buried, descendants have the right to be buried in family plots. I've never heard that every descendant must agree. Whose name is on the grave title? Ask for a copy from the cemetery office. It could be that the name is of someone who is now deceased. If you are the only one who cares and you can show your relationship to the deceased, the cemetery office would most likely agree to put your name down as the owner of the plot. That might simplify your situation.

As for the cost of a marker - $7000 ???? That sounds extremely high. Way, way too high. You should be able to get something for a lot, lot less.

People finder has someone by that name with an extensive criminal record.

All great suggestions. I do have one more to add. If you cannot get any information from the LAPD or with any of the other above suggestions, then maybe try calling the local office of the US Congressional Rep or one of CA's Senators (Feinstein or Harris). They have constituent reps who might be able to help (in theory they should be able to help...) Doesn't hurt to ask...But the LAPD SHOULD be able to help (I say should but they aren't always known for doing the greatest job on missing persons cases *cough* Shelly Miscavage...)

OP, without trying to violate anyone's confidentiality, can you give us his approximate age? There are plenty of people out there with that name.

Hi R48.

It is a Catholic Cemetery, Calvary, in Queens, NY. They built the LI Expressway through the cemetery a stones throw away after Grandpa Otto was interred. It’s very noisy there.

The cemetery office said I need permission of all the descendants, yes, to do anything with the grave. My Grandmother probably had the title to the plot. Two of my sisters probably inherited it. They have the stupid idea that my Gram didn’t want a stone, since there isn’t one, not that she was impoverished with three kids, oh no. So there’s that stupidity to navigate.

It was not purchased with “perpetual care”, so yearly maintenance fees since 1926 are owed. 90 years x $75 a year is $6,750 owed. They told me they’d take a quarter of the debt, but it I paid it, they would send me the bill yearly thereafter. It would be cheaper to just buy the “perpetual care” option for $1,160 if they’d agree to that, but I’m not rich enough to buy something that expensive when I’m already getting it for free.

A memorial foundation STARTS at $845. Then the marker must be the upright style in this area of the cemetery and would cost $1500 to $3000 for a cheap one. Then there were paperwork fees, too, of maybe $100.

So, that comes to $4600. I do feel sad that he has no marker. I visited his grave in 2015.

Sorry for the tangent, OP!

R52,

I am assuming that Calvary is one of the cemeteries of the New York Archdiocese. Before taking the word of those working at the office in the cemetery, I would talk to someone in the main Archdiocese Office that handles cemeteries. You might find those at the main office, who deal with people with family buried in all those cemeteries, can offer you more flexibility than those in the office at Calvary. If you are interested, you could offer to pay the fee for perpetual care in place of all those back fees. They might be willing to settle for that, rather than nothing with back fees due from long deceased family. I'm sure they deal with people in your situation all the time. Do not assume that the people in Calvary's office are the final word on this.

Do not assume that your 2 sisters inherited the ownership of the plot. I know from experience with my relatives (buried in Chicago Archdiocese cemeteries) that sometimes they have unusual policies about who owns the plot. Once again, I would advise talking to someone in the main office, rather than the office at Calvary. If you want your name on the plot information, it might just be contact information, rather than ownership. If no one else in the family is interested, you obviously make the most sense as the contact person. I did this with some of my family graves.

This topic has just come up in my family and I was surprised to find that the information you get at a local cemetery office may not be the most up to date, accurate, or final. Do not assume that it is.

The same is true about having a marker. Do not assume that you have to have the OK for all descendants. That sounds like quite a hardship and I find it hard to believe that the cemetery would really care.

As for the expense for a marker, I can understand that upright markers can be costly, but perhaps you can find someone outside the NY metropolitan area who might make one for less. It is worth looking into.

By they way, where is your grandmother buried? Not with Grandpa Otto?

One last thing ... one other way to make a record of your grandfather's final resting place would be to make a record of his burial location on findagrave.com. Getting a login to that site is free, and you can add as much information as you wish, including a photo of him, his obituary, family information, photo of the grave and the location of the grave. Some people add the GPS location.

Here is a link to the findagrave.com page for Calvary.

Sorry, OP, for the interruption.

OP, I apologise for my digressions and if they took this thread off course. Have you made any further progress?

All the people who traverse this site and there isn't one PI who can run a teeny weeny search for OP?

My brother has contacts in law enforcement (albeit in another state) and a brother-in-law is an Administrative Law Judge for Social Security Admin. I'm hoping they can help. I'm trying to learn now if there's a record of people buried in Los Angeles County potter's field.

r56 is OP. Sorry.

Providence Holy Cross Medical Center on Rinaldi, in Mission Hills district of LA. All I need to know is, did Mark leave the hospital on his own, or did he die there?

Wait, r58, you're OP, and you're saying he died? Oh no!

R59, OP here. I don't know what happened to my dear friend Mark Sherlock after he entered the hospital on Aug 17, 2017. The hospital will not tell me anything.

Did you try local funeral homes?

Thank you, R61. I will try that next. This will be my last post on this subject. I realize I am stretching the bounds of DL; and I appreciate all of your help.

Please keep posting as you get any further information OP.

Yes OP, now we want to know what happened, how, etc.

Hey, OP, do you have Mark's middle initial?

Thank you, R53, for all the info.

r65, his full name is Mark Clive Pearce Sherlock. Just need to know if he's living or dead. Thank you.

Any new developments?

I'm assuming he wasn't on social media.

OP, I wonder if this could be a case of patient dumping, like the recent on in Baltimore.

Not sure what info will be here, but is someone pays the 7.95, we can find out.

It says Latest report as of 01/14/2018

WAIT! Never mind. Don't do it. They actually charge you 23.00 for the first three months right away.

Scumbags. I hope this whole thing wasn't a ruse to get use to pay for Spokeo.

Well, OP, this is going to tell you if he's alive or dead, unfortunately. But it this is a match, it might help you track him down (this seems to match).

Mark C Sherlock, 61

1427 Gardner St, Los Angeles, CA 90046

Known as: M Sherlock

Related to: Charles T Sherlock 28 Susan M Shirley 66 Wilma B Sherlock 97 Charles Z Sherlock Thomas Edmund Sherlock ~71

MARK SHERLOCK PHONES & ADDRESSES 1427 Gardner St, Los Angeles, CA 90046 323-8747928

EDUCATION School / High School: selhurst grammer- London 1970 Specialities: general studies

1410 Gardner St, Los Angeles, CA 90046

El Monte, CA

Sun Valley, CA

Where I live, I can access Court records for free, but it looks like Los Angeles County charges fees. It might be helpful to see if he's had any recent encounters with the law.

OMG!!! R73. I'm going to call that number later today to see if it's really Mark! Your info indicates he went to school in London and that checks. I'll be back!

R73, the info is old, per my sister. But thanks anyway. You have a good heart. He's probably died somewhere and is yet to be found.

[quote]All the people who traverse this site and there isn't one PI who can run a teeny weeny search for OP?

OP doesn't want to pay for the legwork a PI would have to do for this case. Running a "teeny weeny" database search is useless at this point, as demonstrated upthread, since OP already knows his name, age, ssn and the last place he lived. His recorded data isn't going to tell us anything about where he's been since he went to the hospital last summer. Even his landlord has already notified police. A PI might determine who his relatives are yes, but if they're back in England that would involve more time and expenses to contact them, let alone possibly being the one to break the news to them that Mark is missing or dead. It's really a matter for the police right now. A hired PI would probably just work to nudge the police to do their JOB. Sorry, but any reasonable PI would expect to be compensated for their time and expenses for a missing person case, like any other professional. OP's best bet is to keep hounding the police.

Are you sure the landlady reported him missing? I would still go to the police and report him just to be sure. They could tell you whether or not he left the hospital dead or alive.

Start the thread again and upload his photo.

Did this thread get restarted? I don't see it if it did

Sister-in-law filing a Missing Persons Report in Los Angeles on Monday. I live in Butte County and can't drive that far. Thanks for all your good wishes, my brothers.

Please keep us posted old les/OP!

Your neighbor blew his cover, OP, and the Centre was forced to "recall" him.

Update please! You can't just leave us hanging like this, it's cruel.

Hope all is well OP.

I was thinking the same thing r70. Los Angeles-area hospitals have been "dumping" chronically ill and homeless patients in Los Angeles' Skid Row. This article is from 2016, so I'm wondering if it's still going on.

OP here, I've just e- mailed my sister-in-law to request an update on her promise to file a missing person's report.

Let us know OP. We're here with you.

OP here with some disappointing news. The Los Angeles Police Dept took a missing person's report today from my sister-in-law. LAPD detective told my sil that anyone has the right to disappear and that Missions Hills Hospital doesn't have to disclose to LAPD whether my friend Mark died there or was released. I thought the hospital HAD to release that info to the police, but apparently not. Thank you all for your support.

Oh thanks for the update, OP.

Write a letter to the social work department at every hospital in LA County Hospital explaining the situation. They can look up if he was ever a patient. If he died there they can tell you. If he was transferred to a nursing home or some kind of rehab or assisted living they can contact him and see if he wants you to find him. My family had a similar situation once and this worked.

Thank you, r91.

I don’t see how they could refuse to tell you whether or not he died there? I mean that’s taking privacy too far. At the least they should have to say he didn’t die here but no further info.

Unless there’s proof of “first of kin” or POA or something similar, I don’t the hospital can disclose anything at all to strangers about the identity of patients (unless the request is from law enforcement with a warrant). Sadly in your case.

I think hospitals are creepy. You lie their unconscious or otherwise vulnerable, and anyone can enter your room and do anything to you- including the hospital staff.

R95, I was in the hospital a couple of years ago and a guy just walked into my room at night. He was not in uniform and I knew he wasn’t a doctor or nurse. When I asked him who he was and what he was doing there he mumbled something about making a mistake and being in the wrong room. It freaked me out pretty bad that anyone could just enter my room when I was vulnerable and recovering from surgery.

Witness Protection/

Bump. We must band together as DL brethren and solve this mystery!

OP, R73's link gives next of kin info

Here is a link to Thomas Sherlock

585 Box Canyon Rd, Canoga Park, CA 91304 818-347-7282

From LA county medical examiner's database of unidentified bodies.

This is all quite fascinating. OP, do you have any contacts for his family? They certainly should be able to get hospital info or file a missing persons with LAPD. How about having someone call the hospital as his "sister" for info? Are you sure that LAPD has been contacted? Even if they have, it wouldn't hurt for you to do that and go in person to whichever precinct station is in the district that includes your friends most recent address.

It's a long shot, but surely someone here knows someone who works at Mission Hills Hospital in Los Angeles who can look in Mark Sherlock's record.

R100 what a sad report! Mark went to the hospital on 8/17/2017, after this fellow was found. My brother, sister and sil have all called the hospital posing as family and the records dept refuses to tell them anything at all. I am convinced now that Mark died at the hospital and they are not revealing that info.

Is there a Los Angeles doctor here who can pull strings?

Go to the 'coroner's website LA County and input his name.

R104’s advice should work. I had to use it once to find out if a family member really died or just ghosted.

OP, do you have a city government rep (who would want your vote at some point) whose office you could contact?

I know an LA city government person, could that help?

I know a friend back in St. Olaf who has a nephew working as a page at NBC. I could ask her to write to him!

What would we do without you, Rose?

Aww r107 is just trying to help. I'm getting very worried that Mark may be dead. OP, I hope you're ready to accept that if it is the case though on the other hand, dead men can't sue so there must be a reason why they are being so cagey.

What makes the OP believe the hospital hasn't already released Mark's info to his family, or that his family did not see him before he died? Has that been confirmed?

Could we all put in for a PI search?

I'm okay, guys.

Larger public libraries will often have Lexis Nexis terminals.

So, the detective investigating Mark's disappearance actually did some work and got back to my sister-in-law. The detective says Mark was admitted to San Gabriel Valley Hospital on Aug 29, 2017 and discharged Sept 15, 2017. This is NOT the hospital where the ambulance took Mark on Aug 17, 2017. So...boys and girls, I'm calling it. Mark Sherlock is gone. Dead, maybe. Maybe living on 5th St in downtown LA aka Skid Row. The search has ended with no resolution and we will have to deal with that. Now I will tell you why this search was so important to me: I am partly responsible for his disappearance. To be continued.

Oh great, OP has gone all Todd on us.

So apparently Mark was transferred from one hospital to another. Is it possible he went to yet another hospital after that? Or family or other friends took him in? He obviously wasn't capable to go back to the apartment if he abandoned everything. So yeah, he either died or someone is taking care of him physically but not his material affairs. Or sadly, he's on the street. But moat likely dead, let's face it.

Then OP is a murderer...

OP your revelation gave me goosebumps. Please continue with your story of your friend.

Just post his fucking picture. There are a ton of LA homos on here who will recognize if he still goes to the big gay Starbucks.

OP, Hire a private investigator to run a skip trace on your missing friend.

OK, I'm back. Mark suffered an aortic aneurysm a few years back. He survived; but in a terribly weakened state. He collected some kind of disability payment and picked up a little delivery driving work, albeit sporadically. Meanwhile, his best friend, my sister Elise moved to the Boston area to live with her son. She convinced her son that having Mark come live with them in the country would be perfect. Mark could take care of the grounds and the chickens and live in a cottage there. Mark had been an "uncle" to Elise's son for years. It sounded like the perfect situation for all of them.

The son agreed to my sister's proposal, as he himself is too busy to do maintenance on the couple of acres, and his wife is busy with the kids. But son was adamant about Mark: if he didn't work, he didn't eat, and he couldn't live in the cottage, his medical condition notwithstanding.

Last summer my sister shared an email from Mark. He was no longer able to work his part time delivery job , and could barely walk across the room. But he still wanted to live with her and the man he felt was family, her son. He felt certain he could keep up the property, and he missed them terribly. My sister shared the email and asked my advice.

Please forgive me, but I must leave for awhile and will finish when I return. (I think you can guess what my advice was, given my original post).

Thanks for sharing Op, I’m following. So mark moved back to LA from Boston I take it? Some on DL will call you the uncle troll, just a warning! ;)

So poor declining old Mark was betting on your sister and nephew providing him food, a private country cottage, and eventually nursing, even though he knew very well that he was unfit to provide maintenance or financially contribute to the property. I'm guessing Nephew Top didn't fall for it. Or worse, was led to believe by you and your sister that Mark was capable of contributing, and on discovering that Mark was instead a liability, and that everyone knew beforehand and probably hoped that he would take pity on Mark at his own expense when he figured it out, he showed you all.

R126, yes Mark was betting on my sister and nephew providing him a home...after having done so for them when they were destitute. I did not lead Nephew Top (lol!) to believe anything; it was all my sister's doing. But...when Mark detailed his lack of ability to sis, and she shared that with me, I discouraged her from bringing him to Boston, lest they both be thrown out. I don't know if Nephew Top ever learned why Mark didn't come there. Nephew is a brilliant scientist who designs military killer robots...he is cold enough to throw them both out.

So your nephew lives in the "Boston area" and designs "military killer robots." Okay, so he works for Raytheon. That wasn't hard.

No one felt a moral obligation to help Mark?

So Mark never went to Boston, on OP's advice to your sis. Seems like you made a good call OP, knowing the cold killer-robot-scientist nephew wanted Mark to earn his keep. You basically spared him and your sis from pissing off the brilliant engineer and winding up in tje street anyway. I don't understand how that makes Mark's disappearance from his LA apartment partially your fault. I assume there's more to the story you've yet to tell us...

I don't understand any of this. You were adamant about finding Mark. So you find that he was released from a different hospital than you thought he was in and now the case is closed? you don't care where he went, if he is alive or dead, whether he is homeless? why did you even bother looking?

I don't understand this at all.

R129 that's what is killing me! Both my sis and s-i-l knew that Mark, unable to work, was renting a room (and that is a story you really won't believe) and the landlady rented Mark's room to another while Mark was in hospital....and kept that info from me. Mark disappeared in Aug of last year, and I just learned of it.

R130, I think his disappearance is partially my fault because I suggested that my sis not bring Mark to Boston. But you're right, Mark would have ended up on Boston's streets.

My nephew, the designer of killer robots, set fires in his room, peed his bed, and killed a frog for fun when he was a kid, stabbed a man multiple times....so he's perfect for the job he has now.

r129 Unfortunately it seems the people who felt morally obligated to Mark didn't have the means to support him, and the person who did have the means, is a sadistic mad scientist who expected old Mark to do manual labor on his vast acreage in exchange (seems like Nephew Top knew what he was doing by setting impossible conditions for Mark to live there. It was a good way to keep it from happening instead of just saying NO. Now his aunt can blame herself for it. After all, he is a brilliant evil genius. They don't pay a guy like that the big bucks for nothing.).

Something about the last 20 or so posts leads me to say . . .

Mark's landlady had him killed so she could rent his apartment at a market rate.

I like this thread, true or not. 10/10

The fact Mark's last name is SHERLOCK could be a coincidence or a clever hint for us.

I don't understand why you can't just run an online PI search of his records. Hasn't anyone suggested that yet?

Thank you, R133.

Yes, it does sound like the nephew manipulated others into ignoring Mark’s problems.

[quotes]Mark would have ended up on Boston's streets.

Which is no place to be, if you’re gonna be homeless, do it in LA.

Could he have been discharged to a nursing facility? Does the information from the hospital provide a case worker you could contact?

He could be in a nursing home but it would be difficult to find out which one, it would be a very cheap one. If you happened to get a medical records clerk who felt like breaking the rules, you might find out where Mark is.

Does anybody know a medical records clerk somewhere that can pull some strings for the OP?

So Mark didn't come east. As some of have mentioned, it would have a disaster and better to be indigent in a place of clement weather. All the same, I feeling a sort of nagging guilt. Maybe I should have taken him in myself, but Mimsy has always disliked Mark intensely, and I defer to her superior feline discernment. And Mark had terrible cat allergies.

I call bullshit. No fucking picture, a fucking lame story waaaaaay too far into this whole contorted mess of a thread. There is obviously no Mark. If there is, I live in the Boston area, give me the fucking address of this supposed place.

"Mimsy." What the fuck

Oh my God it's a real life Lost at the Fair!

r144, Mark NEVER WENT TO BOSTON. He disappeared from his LA apartment. His name and details are all over this thread and you can google and find his last-known address online easily. PAY ATTENTION.

The OP feels guilty for more than just advising Mark against going to Boston. The mock OP at r143 seems close to the answer, catty as she is.

Seriously, who wants to take in some smelly old guy in bad health with no money, who's not even a family member? OP is feeling bad because she probably COULD have let Mark spend his next dying decade stinking up her second bedroom while paying for his food and eventually becoming his nursemaid, but the thought was distasteful. Now that he's dead, she feels bad. But she SHOULDN'T.

The landlady knows what happened to him. Otherwise she wouldn't have been able to rent his apartment out so quick.

Yeah. Go to her place, sniff out the stinky room, and look under the floorboards.

R147 I am paying attnetion. This bullshit thread says there's a dainty little cottage where Marks sister and her dork son live, and I'll go fucking bang their door. But......I'm guessing that cottage doesn't exist. You're wicked stupid to believe this crap btw. Keep up.

And R147 o wise one, why did it take OP 115 friggin posts to tell us the real story ? Think MAYBE he's just finding facts that suit his bullshit story so he can catfish all you retarded LA queens? I do.

^ It's an OUTRAGE, isn't it?

Who cares if this is real or not? It's DL, pointless amusement.

You people are the meanest of meanies. I mean that. Meanwhile, Mark remains missing. Did I mention he's moody, maudlin, meandering and melancholy?

Haha ok you ditsy queen, I get it. "Who cares, just be in the moment!"

Where's the pic OP, hmmmm ? Since you were so close. Consider DL your own fucking personal milk carton.

Was Mark a veteran? There are veterans’ nursing homes, he might have been transferred into VA hands since he was poor.

Like all DL troll threads, this one offers useful iformation for real people at some future time.

Christ OP, this whole story is so fucked up. And so are you. I previously linked some info to one of Mark's relatives. Call them

Meanwhile, perfectly healthy Mark wishes his crazy ex would stop posting his info on the web.

STOP POSTING MY INFO ON THE WEB!

I'm of the opinion that Mark was discharged, took a flight to Boston and got as far as the cottage where he had a fatal encounter with a killer robot. His remains now lie under a Bostonian bush.

Mark died in the last hospital he was transferred to.

The hospital informed his landlady because that's his last known address. OR, he may have told them a family contact or other person he wished for them to contact. Whoever that was, it wasn't the OP, even though she believes she's good friends with Mark (and even though she hadn't been in touch with Mark since before last summer and didn't know he "went missing" until only a few weeks ago).

The landlady possibly provided the hospital with the emergency contact info Mark gave her when he signed his lease. Again, it probably a family member or someone else the OP doesn't know.

That contact handled Mark's cremation, notified his relatives in England, and they all decided not to he bothered with a funeral/memorial.

Meanwhile the landlady rented out his apartment. She's got a mortgage to pay, and maintenance and repairs, and floating any late-paying renters. For whatever reason the OP isn't telling us, she and this landlady are not on good terms. The landlady might've informed OP and hence there would be no "mystery."

The hospital is under legal obligation to keep patient info private from non-family.

Perhaps OP wants this to be a mystery because she hadn't been in touch with Mark for almost year and meanwhile he died. Easier on the conscience to conjur up a mystery featuring a heartless hospital dumping people into skid row and an evil landlady who only cares about keeping her apartments rented.

Are we still doing this? On a scale of 1-10, with Soft Butch Sous Chef being 10, how entertaining is this?

9/10

Try Reddit, 4chan and abovetopsecret. On those site people are sooo crazy they will find anything. Anything.

R162, I'd say it's a 4.5. It's been a slow-news day kind of month here, what with the CMBYN trolls and frequent Prime Times.

It's usually the fifth thread I click from my watched list, after I catch up with 'Don't Go There/Scariest Thing That's Ever Happened to You', but before I read the new posts on 'Can I Refrigerate Brewed Coffee for a Week?'.

Has anyone thought to run a records search? You could try that, OP.

In order of reading priority, RL Unsolved Mystery follows the Jello Salads thread.

This.

Never.

Happened.

is the mystery solved?

R132 "that is a story you really won't believe."

Why not,OP? We've believed every word up to now.

Guys, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Mark--

NOOOOOO! You. Can. Not. Do. This. That was not part of the bargain, George. NOoOoooo......

R168, you made me laugh.

Not that you asked, but a compassionate LAPD detective found Mark for our family. He's alive but not well and was found in a LA medical facility that accepted him in spite of his destitute condition. My sister is keeping in touch with him regularly.

Wow - I remember this thread and glad you updated us.

What exactly happened? How did he seemingly vanish?

OP here, I just contacted my sister for the rest of the story. Apparently, Mark was transferred from the hospital to a private facility that accepted him in spite of his destitute status. The owner of that facility personally escorted Mark back to his family in England in May of last year. R175, please read my former posts for the story. Thank you for your interest.

So there WAS a simple explanation. Thanks for the update!

I’m glad your story had an essentially happy ending, OP. 🙂