Friends and family search for missing man

WARREN

Four friends of a 73-year-old man missing since Sunday resumed the search for him this morning in the woods behind the Stort Stop Truck Stop on state Route 5, Warren Township, after his pickup truck was found at the truck stop Thursday.

They were joined by Warren Township firefighters, who searched the area for a second day in hopes of finding Darryl R. Hall of Penn Avenue Northwest.

Warren police alerted the public to his disappearance Thursday, saying Hall was suicidal and possibly armed.

His wife said she last spoke with him Sunday morning about 10 a.m., when he said he was going to “drive on a long road and commit suicide.” He has early-stage dementia and indicated that he didn’t want to die after a drawn-out period with the disease, said Don Bishop, Warren Township police chief. Hall was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark jacket.

Bishop said some of Hall’s friends and family, the Warren Township Police Department, the fire departments from Warren and Southington townships and police dogs from two police departments searched the woods near the truck stop and on the other side of Route 5 from 10 a.m. to around 4 p.m. Thursday without success. Hall’s truck was found in the parking lot there about 10 a.m.

The other side of Route 5 was checked because Hall frequently walked at a township-owned dump site off of Burnett Road, the chief said.

Witnesses said Hall had gone to the restaurant in the truck stop Sunday morning, so it’s possible he left with someone else, Bishop said.