Found Deceased JAPAN - Trevor Balint, 34, from Hubbard, Ohio, missing from Yokota Air Base, 1 Feb 2021

That recording sounds exactly like the recording that is played on big speakers every day at 8 AM on US bases - they play the Star Spangled Banner. On my base, that is always followed by the Japanese National Anthem. The video cut off before that. My guess is she recorded it at 8 am.

 

The FB page says that her mom is coming, probably here by now. That means they both will be in Restriction of Movement for 14 days - they will get a COVID test sometime between day 10-14 (at least that is what it is on my base). They can’t leave the base apartment or have anyone in. That is the requirement here. So, BB won’t be out and about doing any searching or poster hanging for 2 weeks. I’m glad her mom is there. Okay. I’ll shut up now. Now ya’ll go solve this so I don’t go falling down rabbit holes!

 

That's so interesting! Thank you; I would have never even imagined that's why the anthem was playing. I didn't know that was a thing! Thanks for all your information.

 

Oh my gosh, I would go bonkers if my spouse was missing under suspicious circumstances and I had to stay inside my apartment for 14 days.

 

Has his family spoke out at all? Friends??

 

This is a couple day's old but I did not see it posted. Unfortunately, I don't think it provides anything in the way of new information.

FEB 11, 2021
‘Deeply disturbing’: Ohio lawmaker calls Yokota commander about constituent’s disappearance - Pacific - Stripes
[...]

Air Force investigators are keeping confidential any information they have on Trevor Balint’s subsequent movements, including his phone records or footage from cameras in the local area or on base.

“The details requested are part of an on-going investigation and cannot be released,” Yokota spokeswoman Kaori Matsukasa told Stars and Stripes in an email Wednesday.

[...]

 

FEB 12, 2021
Search continues for missing Hubbard man | News, Sports, Jobs - The Vindicator (vindy.com)
[...]

DM of Brookfield, the mother-in-law of the missing Trevor Balint, traveled to Detroit to receive an emergency visa to travel to Japan. According to the social media site “Find Trevor Balint,” DM booked a 12-hour flight to Japan, and the site confirmed that Moss was enroute Thursday morning.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Howland, said he is receiving daily updates of the search from Col. Andrew Campbell, commander of the Yakota Air Base in Japan. Ryan and the office of U.S. Sen. Rob Portman also helped DM secure the emergency visa from the U.S. State Department, Mott said.

[...]

Balint’s wife Britni and friends, along with Japanese authorities, have been searching for the 34-year-old man. Reports said the Americans in Japan had posted flyers on and around the air base, but the social media site showed that the posting of flyers was stopped since it was determined that practice was illegal without permission of the local municipality in Japan.

[...]

 

Yes, it is pretty intense. I teach on base. When a student pops positive, the entire family AND the entire family of any of that child’s close contacts has to quarantine for 14 days. This means that at any time we have had up to 90 or so students in ROM with families. And that means we have any number of service members in quarantine, even though they are negative. AND Japan is NOT playing with who they allow in the country and how they get to base. If someone picks them up at the airport, that person has to ROM. The only option is to take a base bus from the airport directly to your quarters, with no contact with anyone other than those on the bus. And ... not to make it about me, but those of us on our base haven’t been allowed to leave our general area in almost a year now. Travel is VERY restricted. We can travel on our peninsula and within some of our prefecture (to Mt. Fuji, for example), but that is about it. People on Trevor’s base have not been that restricted. The big news for them this weekend is that they are once again allowed to go to Disneyland and plenty of folks on base are very jealous, lol.

 

Can you tell us what ROM stands for? Thanks!

 

Restriction of Movement

 

Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply Yokota was on lockdown; rather there are still some existing orders in place both relating to alcohol , the Japanese state of emergency and even gate hours that TB likely ignored if he had in fact bought those Chu Hai cans from the 7-Eleven as he apparently did 2000-2100 on Jan 31, and later drank them outside the vacant garden house / townhouse where his belongings were later found.

Anyone not used to these rules and regs might think “ so what ?” if looking at someone who simply went out to buy drinks on a Sunday and drank a bunch later. Even when there aren’t things like lockdown , there are other rules that most people wouldn’t think of ... and kind of remain invisible.

Maybe I’m being too uptight but under current circumstances, there seems to be an above average drive to drink. And, the purchases of the canned Chu Hai’s to me ( assuming he alone drank them ) suggests it was bought primarily for the alcoholic punch it packs per ¥100.

If the discarded possessions and empty Chu Hai cans left on the porch of the vacant garden house was unintentional, I’m inclined to think the worst given the weather etc. However, if intentional, with discarded effects left as a ploy, that’d actually be good news as it’d mean he could be found safe and alive.

 

We have been following. One of the strangest components of this case is the reset mobile phone. How is this not a priority for OSI to investigate and petition to have those records at once? Assuming they have not updated BB on the status of this investigation... Can anyone make sense as to why the Find Trevor Balint FB page there is an appeal for anyone who speaks Japanese to assist translating buttons (and the like) for the Balint mobile service webpage? Wouldn’t OSI being doing this? Why would OSI allow outsiders to participate in investigative matters? (Wondering how long this appeal with remain on the FTB FB page—- doesn’t make sense and I have noticed some posts have been removed.)

 

At the moment foul play is top of my list, by someone who lives on the base.

I wonder if he could have been smuggled out in the trunk of a car and his possessions returned to make it look like he's still on the base, because he wouldn't have been seen leaving by the guards on the gate, and if a car did leave the perpetrator wouldn't want it to be part of the investigation.

"We have been unable to track who he was talking to – it is nobody in our joint network,.."

This assumes everyone in the "joint network" has shared their mobile phone data, and not deleted it, because with a phone reset they wouldn't have got this information from TB's phone.

moo

 

I think this is a case of self-harm. We have a person who had advanced degrees who was substitute teaching while they followed a spouse in a much more high-powered career around the world into situations that are very isolating even without the global pandemic. I think he drank a few alcoholic beverages to get his courage up, left his phone behind, and went to enact a plan on foot.

 

I wish I had an answer for you but I don't understand it either. Under the circumstances, I have to believe that his phone contains key information. MOO

ETA: And, welcome to Websleuths!

 

I'm grossly overqualified for the job I currently have, the pay is not great either. It's really easy to fall into a spiral of discouragement, so I totally get it. I think this is either a case of self-harm or he ran away. But where to? And why?

 

There’s some further information on “Find Trevor Balint” page. He may have disappeared during the day light hours after Britni left for work (between 06:20 am and 12:40 pm). When Britni returned back home for lunch the door was unlocked.

 

If she never checked his room before she left for work it doesn't reveal anything more reliable about when he went missing.

But it raises more questions about the timeline of when BB realised TB was missing. Lunch time or evening?

Previously it was when she finished work and saw a message that someone had found his wallet. She then went to the vacant townhome and it was Monday evening, starting to get dark.

I'm finding it hard to reconcile why the story is changing, and why greater clarity isn't possible. Like times, instead of reference to getting dark and cold. Surely you check the time if your spouse is missing and you're trying to work out where they might be.

MOO

 

Find Trevor Balint
The post is about how she feels the security at the base is “abysmal”.

Under the above post, Admin of the Find Trevor Balint posted this in the comments:

********
“Author
Find Trevor Balint Oh how I wish I had done so many things differently. I wish I had put my anger aside and tucked him in to bed when he got home. Told him how incredibly worried I was that he had been out so late. How I was upset because he had worried me so freaking much. I wish I had checked on him in the morning, made sure he had some Gatorade, made sure he knew I loved him desperately, even when things seemed difficult.”
********