From behind, the young man looked just like Daniel. The same skinny build, the same wavy brown hair.
Patricia Bernard Marks spotted him as he caught a cab at the Lihu‘e Airport. She flung herself into traffic to catch up with the man, certain he was her 24-year-old son.
But the face behind the familiar locks wasn’t one she recognized.
As he opened the door to share the taxi, she realized she had been mistaken.
“I said, ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were someone I knew,’” Marks recalled saying on that winter 2005 day.
“He looked so much like Daniel from the back.”
Until this week, Marks had not returned to the island to search for her missing son since he disappeared sometime between Nov. 9 and Nov. 16, 2005. Daniel Joseph Marks had visited Kaua‘i on a whim, with the hope of camping and hiking along Na Pali Coast. He has not been seen by a family member since, but that does not necessarily mean he is dead.
Sightings
Following years of searching with the help of family members, friends, the Kaua‘i Police Department and private investigators, Marks convinced America’s Most Wanted to air her son’s story. After it appeared on June 19, 2010, someone called the program’s staff to report a sighting. The person saw a man matching Daniel’s description with a young blonde in braids.
“He was very dirty and they were sharing an ice cream cone,” Marks said of the report.
Then, after attending a Sunday service at a Lihu‘e church, two more people shared their own sightings of the now 30-year-old man. Several more in Po‘ipu and Kapa‘a swore they had seen Daniel.
Marks said that she, Daniel and his siblings are very close and if he wished to become a hermit, he would have let them know before roughing it in the jungle. He also was of sound mind at the time of his disappearance and planned to attend graduate school in Portland, Ore., in January 2006.
“He wouldn’t inflict this kind of pain on us,” said Marks, a retired social worker.
If that’s the case, where is he?
“I think Daniel’s alive — that’s just intuitive,” Marks said. “I don’t think he’s intentionally missing, either.”
A mother’s theories
The detective who’s handling the case told her there’s no way to know if he’s still on island. But Marks has some theories.
The first, although it may sound like the plot of a movie on the Lifetime channel, involves amnesia.
While in high school in Ohio, another teen assaulted Daniel, giving him a concussion. He lost his memory for a week. Then, while in Eugene, Ore., for a college semester, Daniel fell and struck his head on concrete. It resulted in a year of memory loss.
“It was so bad, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to finish school,” Marks said.
He saw a neurologist, and Daniel, as well as Marks, learned that a lesser head trauma could give him a concussion and longer memory loss.
“He could be walking around this island as a homeless person and not know who he is,” Marks said.
She doubts he suffers from a mental illness or fell from a cliff, as he was a cautious, quiet person. He was last seen one afternoon in November overlooking Waimea Canyon at the second Kalalau lookout on Pihea Trail. Marks said witnesses told her he’d been looking for a safe way into the valley.
Another theory is foul play. Marks fears someone may have killed, kidnapped or otherwise caused Daniel’s disappearance. She said an acquaintance told him about cheap tickets to the island shortly before he left for a series of planned trips.
“I don’t like the way Daniel received the information about coming to this island and I don’t like the fact that there are a number of young men missing who have extremely similar profiles,” Marks said.
County spokeswoman Sarah Blane said the Kaua‘i Police Department considers Daniel’s case — as well as any other unsolved missing person case — active until the person is located.
Whatever the circumstances, Marks said she still has hope that she’ll learn the truth of this more than five-year mystery. The case has been newly assigned to Lt. Danilo Abadilla, whom Marks called courageous and capable. She added that he’s willing to work with other agencies to find Daniel.
“I really think he’s going to see this case from new eyes,” she said.
Knowing what happened to her son would be a relief, Marks said, as she’s spent the past half decade wondering what could have become of her youngest child.
“Nothing is the same,” Marks said. “Daniel is on my mind every single minute.”
Memories of Daniel
He’s on a lot of other people’s minds too.
Kathy Bernard, Marks’ sister, said she remembers her talented nephew best in his youth.
Daniel had bright brown eyes and a slightly freckled nose and cheeks; he loved nature, traveling, organic food and music. He eventually recorded an album called “Emergent” and graduated with a B.A. in music from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He planned to study sustainable ecology at Portland State University, she said.
“Probably the greatest quality of Daniel was his open-mindedness and accepting nature, which allowed him to be nice to everyone,” Bernard recalled in an email to The Garden Island. “This I can honestly say — he was nice to everyone, a kind, quiet, and gentle person.”
Family friend Janice Wimmersberger, whose daughter Megan attended college with Daniel, said friends called him “Fly.”
“He had everything to live for,” Wimmersberger said. “We were all shocked when we later learned he turned up missing.”
She worked with Marks to do Internet searches for Daniel, and learned there are at least six missing people from the Mainland who were last seen on Kaua‘i.
“Losing a child is a horrendous event but to have a child go missing is the worst tragedy,” Wimmersberger said. “There is no closure.”
Bernard and Marks are still hoping for a miracle.
“That we will find him someday, and he will be well, and with us again,” Bernard said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Kaua‘i Police Dispatch at 241-1711 or the Kaua‘i Investigative Services Bureau at 241-1696. They may also contact The National Center for Missing Adults at (602) 749-2000 or visit www.missingadults.org.
Anyone interested in listening to Daniel’s music may visit http://teamabunai.org/erth/.
