‘I’m going away’ : Two decades later, a family from Morris Township still hopes David Abramovitz will return
By
Morristown Green Contributor
August 2, 2021
By Tyler Barth
“Where is my brother David?
Sisters
Jill Abramovitz and
Stephanie Abramovitz Fletcher have been asking the question for 20 years, ever since
David Scott Abramovitz left their Morris Township house for the last time, bound for parts unknown.
‘It’s that horrible thing where you want closure and you also want hope,’ says Jill, now a successful Broadway actress. ‘You cling to anything.’
David Scott Abramovitz, circa 2001.
David was 23 when he was last seen at the family home on Bickford Drive, near the Randolph border, on May 3, 2001.
After his disappearance was reported, police tracked David via cellular records to Burlington, VT. There, the trail went cold.
David struggled with depression, says Stephanie, a theater teacher in Basking Ridge.
‘We know his depression is what made him escape the area. He wanted to be off with animals and nature… it’s always the super good people that suffer from depression,’ she says.
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Before he vanished, David emptied his bank account, gave away several belongings, and wrote a letter to his best friend.
The missing persons website
The Charley Project called it a ‘suicide note.’ The Abramovitz sisters doubt this, based on experts they have consulted.
Three days after David was last seen, his friend called the family to say he had received a ‘depressing’ letter. David recently had visited him in California for a couple of weeks. He wrote about how much their friendship meant to him, and what a wonderful time he had on his visit, according to Stephanie.
‘I’m going away,’ David wrote, vaguely.
He had hinted as much to his sisters around Passover 2001, after quitting The Seeing Eye.
‘I’m going on an adventure. I need to figure things out,’ Stephanie remembers David saying.
She took him out for his birthday, and inquired about his plans. He shut her down:
‘Don’t ask any questions, or else I’m going to end the night early,’ David told her.
That April evening, their last together, is etched in Stephanie’s memory. They shared an artichoke heart at their favorite restaurant, Portofino’s in Morristown, and visited a used CD store on Route 10. (‘Who is that?’ David asked when she bought Lionel Richie’s
Greatest Hits.) Stephanie picked the movie, taking her brother to see
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
The search for David led to Quechee Gorge Village, VT, about 70 miles southeast of Burlington. David had spoken of Quechee Gorge, a 165-foot deep canyon.
Family members canvassed the area, going door to door, visiting hotels and shelters. Climbers even rappelled down the gorge’s walls, searching for David.
‘You can’t hide your own body,’ Stephanie remembers her husband saying.
Jill once touted Wyoming to David. But she has no reason to think he followed through.
Police took David’s departure seriously and did everything they could, say the sisters, who are grateful to law enforcement.
According to David’s college girlfriend, who asked to be identified as
Agustina, David was interested in the book
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer. It tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a California college graduate and outdoorsman who left home in 1990 to pursue a nomadic lifestyle.
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‘I’m going away’ : Two decades later, a family from Morris Township still hopes David Abramovitz will return | Morristown Green