Gone missing

When people go missing, friends and family have few options but to go to the police, hope and pray for the best and then live with the anxiety.
The case of Patrick Kelly in Boston is typical: a young man, apparently disillusioned with his life or depressed with his situation, simply takes off and does not contact friends or family.
In December, another example: Damien Casey from County Clare was tracked down in New Haven, Conn., after a photograph of him in the Irish Echo led people to recognize him. Casey went missing in 2002.
He was accomplished, having completed a law degree in Ireland, but had become depressed and may have had feelings that his career was a failure, his family suggested.
When located, Casey did not want to be found and told his sister who tried to visit him that he was happy with his situation in New Haven.
Few understand this type of dilemma better than Mike Mullaney, an investment manager in Boston and the father of Matt, who may be in Ireland. He is believed to have been spotted twice on the west coast.
Mullaney empathizes strongly with what families go through when loved ones are missing.
Broadly, the story of his son is typical too — a bright young man who gets disillusioned and decides to go missing — or, as Mullaney stressed, who may have decided to take a day or two away from their concerns.
Then “two days become two weeks and two weeks become two months,” said Mullaney, “and then how do you reenter? On one level there must be some embarrassment or fear that he’s in trouble.”
Mullaney says his son is not in trouble with the family. They just want him to get in touch with them.
“He had gone to Fairfield University for two years,” Mullaney said of his son. “But it just wasn’t clicking, he wasn’t feeling fulfilled there. Then for a semester he was living and working at home, which we’re sure he wasn’t too crazy about, being with mom and dad when his friends were at school still.
“We were disappointed he didn’t hang in, and I’d say, ‘Matt, if you don’t get an education, at least get a skill.’ “
The Mullaneys’ son then went to Florence to the Angel Academy of Art in order to acquire and develop his artistic skills.
The school is demanding. Matt told his father that he’d experienced “abundant criticisms and few compliments” about his work, but, Mullaney said, other students said the same, that it was a tough course.
And then Matt went to the Lion’s Fountain pub and then went missing.
“We found out later that he had put in his application to the art academy that he was in search of himself,” Mullaney said. “He can be stubborn, like I can be, like his mother can be, like, I guess, the Irish can be.”
Mullaney added that he is willing to reach out to other families, like the Caseys and the Kellys, and to share what he has experienced with Matt.
On the occasions that Matt has been spotted — on a train, in Dublin, in Galway, and, most recently, in Westport by a retired couple who said “unless he has a walking spitting image in Ireland with an American accent, it must be him,” Mullaney’s son has been clean-shaven and dressed casually.
This gives the Mullaneys hope that their son is taking his time, perhaps needs to take his time, but will be back in touch.
Police in Ireland continue to investigate the case.
Matt Mullaney has the following identification marks: a tattoo of a flaming shamrock on his upper back, pierced ears (though he may not wear earrings), and a surgical scar on left ankle.