Police have recovered a pick-up truck belonging to a missing DeKalb County folk musician some 850 miles away from where Steven Marchi was last seen.
DeKalb Police Lt. J.A. Lewis called the discovery "the first significant lead" in the search for Marchi, who left his townhouse off Buford Highway and North Druid Hills Road on Aug. 12 and did not return.
Marchi's dark green Dodge Ram was found one month ago in the parking lot of a Gainesville, Texas Walmart.
Because law enforcement was not involved in towing the vehicle, Marchi's tag and vehicle identification number did not trigger a hit in the national missing persons registry at the time, Lewis said. "Unfortunately, it sailed under the radar," he said.
Friends of the missing musician, who had allowed him to use their Illinois residence as his permanent address, received a letter from a Texas impound lot on Saturday and passed it along to police.
But despite the passage of time, investigators may have caught a break. Cameras monitor the parking lot where Marchi's truck was abandoned around the clock, and a manager with the Gainesville Walmart said the store does not erase old footage.
Though she may be closer to finding out what happened to her son, Ginger Marchi fears the worst.
"I don't think he's alive," the man's mother told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a phone interview from her home in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. "I really don't."
Marchi was reported missing by friends Aug. 22. They are convinced he didn't leave on his own accord, noting that Marchi's cell phone and guitar were found in his townhouse.
"He was never without his guitar," said his mother, who worries he may have met with trouble working one of his side jobs.
Ginger Marchi said her son told friends about a confrontation he had with a customer at B.J. Roosters, a Cheshire Bridge Road gay bar where the 43-year-old troubadour occasionally performed as a dancer.
"I think he was lured by someone," Ginger Marchi said. Her son was naive, she said -- "a Peter Pan who never grew up."
Steven Marchi also worked as a freelance massage therapist treating clients in their homes.
Kelly Hagen, a friend of Marchi's, said she thinks "something weird happened" en route to an appointment.
"Steve was a really trusting person," Hagen said. "I've seen him literally give the jacket off his back to a homeless person. I don't think this was a random crime."
Friends and family said that if Marchi had any connection to Texas, he never mentioned it.
DeKalb police said they are working with Gainesville police to recover any evidence left in Marchi's truck.
"We've exhausted every lead" locally, Lewis said, adding so far they've found nothing to indicate foul play in Marchi's disappearance.
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