Search for missing Camden County man continues nearly 9 years after he disappeared

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - The search for a missing Camden County man continues nearly 9 years after he went missing.

Donald Erwin was last seen on December 29, 2013.

Monday family, friends, and a volunteer search team combed portions of the Lake of the Ozarks.

“When he first went missing it was very hard to get anybody to listen,” said Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, Donald Erwin’s sister.

Erwin was 59 years old when he vanished.

“People didn’t want to believe it. They wanted to assume that he was a guy and he wanted to go missing,” she said.

Erwin-Bowen says that law enforcement did very little to launch a search back then.

She said, “Bottom line is it took 7 years, almost 8 years before somebody finally said can we help you?”

That’s when Erwin-Bowen met Mindi Sales.

“I have an older brother too. If my older brother went missing I would want the world to stop,” said Sales.

She said she followed Erwin’s story on social media and decided to put her words into action. She started helping the missing man’s family in any way she could.

“We went and did a search by where he had lived before he disappeared,” said Sales.

That search continued over the years with Sales’ help. She contacted Adventures with a Purpose, a search and rescue dive team, from Oregon.

The team combed through a small river and an area of the Niangua arm of the lake near a bridge.

“They looked more for my brother in the last two years of the almost 9 years that he’s been missing than anyone has ever done,” said Erwin-Bowen.

Though Monday’s search didn’t bring the answers Erwin’s family was looking for, it did bring them hope.

Sales said, “I don’t think we’ll ever stop. My hope is that Yvonne, her family, and me, in a sense, that we’re able to have peace knowing he’s where he wanted to be.”

“You never have closure. You have hope of bringing them home but there’ll never be closure because you’ll always wonder, why did this happen,” said Erwin-Bowen.

If anyone has any information on where Donald Erwin could be you’re asked to reach out to the group on social media. Click here to access a link to the ‘Find Donnie Erwin’ Facebook page.

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