Michael’s Run puts spotlight on mental wellness, 19-year-old missing person’s case

LEOMINSTER — Michael’s Run in Leominster, to be held this month for the first time since 2019, is an important fundraiser for local mental wellness initiatives.

The event — which took place Oct. 8 at the Fraternal Order of Eagles Hall on Litchfield Street — also served as a reminder that Leominster native Michael Jay Amico Wallace, for whom the event is named, is still missing after almost two decades — and his family and friends are still looking for answers about what happened to him.

Until then, Wallace’s sister Kim Wallace-Pehi said, “We’ll just keep looking and doing what we’re doing.”

Handsome, popular, well-liked

Michael Wallace was a handsome, popular and well-liked student at Leominster High School in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was captain of the school football and track teams, served as senior class president, and was named the best-looking guy in the class in the yearbook.

Also during his senior year, Wallace was diagnosed with major depression (now called clinical depression) and hospitalized for nearly seven weeks. He graduated from high school in 1991 and attended Harvard University to play football.

The right mix of medication allowed Wallace to go almost three years between episodes of depression, until his junior year at Harvard. A year later, in 1995, he earned his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, in organizational psychology.

Wallace and his wife, who met in college, moved to California in 1997.

Following the sudden death of his father, Ralph, in 1999 at age 51, the loss of his job at Sun Microsystems (for which he later sued), a drunken driving arrest and a separation from his wife, Wallace suffered a bout of depression.

Wallace was last seen in Menlo Park, California, Feb. 4, 2003, two months before his 30th birthday. That day, he was supposed to go with his estranged wife to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get identification so he could fly to Massachusetts. He canceled on her the night before.

All of Wallace’s possessions were left behind when he vanished.

Theories and sightings

There have been no phone calls, no letters, nothing from him for almost 20 years. There are theories surrounding his disappearance: Did he take his love of two early 2000s movies, “Catch Me If You Can” and “The Bourne Identity,” and live them out in real life? Did he join a monastery after studying Buddhism? Did he take his own life, worried his depression was becoming a burden to his family and friends?

There have also been reports of people spotting Wallace at a McDonald’s in California (a man driving a yellow Corvette, acting manic and ordering three hash browns), or walking the streets of San Diego in 2015. In both cases, it wasn’t Wallace.

And then, there was the photograph with a famous American actor.

“We thought we had a sighting of him last fall in Italy. There is a photo of Harrison Ford in Sicily with some officers who found his credit card,” Wallace-Pehi said. “One of those officers looks exactly like Michael. Only, he has a mask on. We have talked to the German tourist that turned in the (credit card). He does not believe it’s him.”

‘Don’t give up’

As the 20th anniversary of his disappearance approaches, Wallace’s family is continuing to share his story through avenues such as The Vanished podcast, which featured the case in April; support local causes like the SHINE Initiative, UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital and the Leominster Education Foundation through the 5-kilometer Michael’s Run and the annual Party with a Purpose; and let people with depression know they are not alone.

“Some people, like Michael, have the kind of scars that have no explanation, and that never quite heal,” Wallace-Pehi wrote on the Michael’s Run website on the 18th anniversary of her brother’s disappearance. “A chemical imbalance doesn’t have to have a reason. There is no ‘why.’ And there is no easy answer. The trick is remembering that there is an answer, especially when all you want to do is give up. Don’t give up.”

At the time of his disappearance, Michael Jay Amico Wallace was 6 feet tall, 190 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He has tattoos of a large cross and a Tasmanian devil on his thigh and a rose on his ankle.

To register for this year's 5K run and walk, go to michaelsrun.org.

Anyone with information on the case should call the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office at (650) 363-4050 and reference case number 03-04390.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Michael’s Run puts spotlight on mental wellness, missing person’s case