Driver vanishes — except for footprints — after car slides off highway, CO cops say

Brooke Baitinger
·2 min read
2

A man vanished after the car he was driving slid off a highway in northwest Colorado — but a single set of footprints leading from the car offers a clue, cops say.

Someone reported the accident after they saw the car slide off the roadway about 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 4, the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The car slid over the edge of Highway 13 near milepost 30 in Rio Blanco County.

The driver, Henry David Twitchell, had disappeared by the time deputies arrived, officials said.

Instead, they “discovered a single set of footprints leading from the vehicle to the highway” — and have been searching the area ever since.

Twitchell’s cellphone last pinged in the early morning hours of Friday, Jan. 5 in Garfield County near mile marker 16 along the same highway, officials said.

Twitchell was last seen Jan. 4 in Carbondale, about seven to eight miles from where he lives in El Jebel, officials said. His information was entered into the National Crime Information Center as a missing person.

Twitchell is between 5 feet 10 or 11 inches tall, weighs about 200 pounds, and has blue eyes and short brown hair. He’s about 22 years old, officials told McClatchy News in an email.

He does not have any tattoos and is probably wearing the same green puffy jacket he’s seen wearing in a missing person photo of him that shows him fishing. He has facial hair in the photos but was last known to be clean-shaven, officials said.

Anyone who knows where he may be should contact the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office dispatch line at 970-479-2201, the Rio Blanco Sheriff’s Office at 970-878-9600, or the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office at 970-625-8095.

Tipsters can remain anonymous by submitting a tip online with the Eagle County Crime Stoppers at www.p3tips.com or by sending a mobile tip using the free ”P3 Tips” mobile app.

If the tip leads to an arrest or indictment of any suspect involved, the tipsters could receive a cash reward, officials said.

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