Karen DiGia remembered her son, nineteen-year-old David Thies, acting strangely throughout the afternoon of December 13, 1982. It was his father’s birthday, and the Thies family was celebrating the occasion in their Manhattan apartment. Karen, who admits her son had mental problems, said David seemed petrified with fear as he surfed the various television news channels.

Around 4:00 p.m., David stepped outside the apartment to smoke a cigarette; he never returned. A search of the neighborhood and ultimately the entire Big Apple found no trace of him.

After Karen posted a $25,000 reward for information regarding her son, the New York City police received over forty tips stating David was in California. Several callers claimed they had seen him on the streets selling “junk” and associating with members of a cult. Police investigated the reported sightings, but none could be confirmed.

In 1985, three years after his disappearance, the NYPD received several calls suggesting David was back in the area. Sightings of a man resembling him were reported across several midtown homeless shelters, but police could not locate the man or confirm if he was David.

Over forty years later, David Thies is still missing. At the time of his disappearance, he was five-feet-eleven-inches tall and weighed between one-hundred-forty and one-hundred-forty-five pounds. He had brown hair and blue eyes and wore a moustache and beard. His left ear was pierced and he had a pronounced scar on the right side of his nose.

David was described by psychiatric social workers as having suicidal tendencies. He would today be sixty-years-old.

If you have any information you believe relevant to the disappearance of David Thies, please contact the New York Police Department at 646-610-6914.

David Thies

Many people believe this photo of an unidentified man on NaMUs  (“The National Center and Unidentified Persons System) bears a resemblance to David Thies.

This man, however, is described as six-feet-five-inches tall, significantly taller than David Thies.

A Resemblance, But Not David

Sources:

• Charley Project
• Doe Network
• Nam Us
• New York Daily News