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Feb 28, 2011 Muskogee Phoenix
Tecla Rodriguez fears the worst has happened to her son who has been missing since Wednesday.
Richard Urista, 23, was driving Rodriguez’ van, which was found Thursday by Amarillo police, said Muskogee Police Lt. Bobby Lee.
He was having some mental issues, said his sister, Bididiana Pantoja.
“My mom’s still scared the wrong kind of people might have picked him up — she’s thinking the worst,” Pantoja said Monday. “He stopped going to work last Monday.”
His supervisor at Oklahoma Interpak, Eric Elgin, said he had given a two-week notice he was leaving about two weeks before he left.
“He was such a nice kid — I was sorry to hear he was going to be leaving,” Elgin said.
Pantoja said she believes he left Amarillo walking. A couple supposedly picked him up who couldn’t give much information, she said. He told them he drove the van until it ran out of gas.
He has communicated with his roommate. The men lived in an apartment on Denison Street, she said. The roommate was nervous and couldn’t say much to the family, Pantoja said.
“As far as I know, he was OK and told his roommate not to worry about him,” she said. “His plan was to go to California to see friends. But he should have made it there by now.”
She said he told his roommate he would hitchhike or walk but that he would get there.
Hosane Pasdighysales, Urista’s friend as well as roommate, said Urista was not in his right mind before he left.
Friends begged him not to go, but he said he had a mission, Pasdighysales said.
Pasdighysales said a couple called him from Roy, N.M., and told him they had found Urista on an isolated road and had taken him to their house on Thursday, where he rested five or six hours.
They asked him to stay, but he left after sleeping five or six hours, Pasdighysales said. The couple gave him an extra coat.
He then took off walking to Wagon Mounds, Pasdighysales said.
“I’m just asking people to pray for him,” Pasdighysales said. “I’m praying and hoping to God he will be OK. I know when he left he was not in his right mind.”
At the time he took his mother’s van, he was believed to have been headed to a physician’s office, police said.
He has friends and relatives in New Mexico that say he has not contacted them, Lee said.
You can help
Richard Urista is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs about 110 pounds and has brown eyes and hair. If you have any information about his whereabouts, contact the Muskogee Police investigators at 680-3110
