The father and girlfriend of a missing Cheyenne man are asking for the public’s help in locating the 27-year-old, who’s been missing for nearly two weeks.
Nathan “Nate” Mejia was last seen on a video call with his girlfriend March 23 in Cheyenne. His father, Saul, also messaged with his son earlier that day and said nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Neither has heard from him since.
His girlfriend, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for her safety given the possible circumstances under which he disappeared, told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that she had driven to Cheyenne the day before from her home in South Dakota to visit Mejia.
The two met on the internet, and though they have been communicating since October, this was to be their first in-person meeting.
They never met.
Anxious And Paranoid
She said that during their video chat prior to her leaving for Wyoming, Mejia appeared anxious and paranoid.
The two had planned to meet at her hotel room later that evening. When she arrived around 11:30 p.m., she tried to message him on two phones, but both were turned off.
The next day, she contacted Mejia’s brother and the two scoured the city and all his usual haunts but did not find him.
Later that day, Saul reported his son missing.
The Cheyenne Police Department is treating this as a missing person case. Mejia has been entered as a missing person in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database, according to Alexandra Farkas, public information officer.
Farkas said the department has also released a be-on-the-lookout alert (BOLO) for Mejia for all Laramie County agencies.
The investigation remains ongoing, Farkas stated, and anyone with information is encouraged to call the Cheyenne dispatch center at 307-637-6525.
Cryptic Warning
Mysterious circumstances leading up to Mejia’s vanishing cause alarm for his girlfriend, who said he shared cryptic warnings about the people in his life.
Mejia struggled with drug addiction, and is unemployed and staying with family and friends. The two talked about Mejia moving to South Dakota to be with her and her children to start a new life. Mejia also has two young children.
Despite his attempts to stay clean and on track, she said Mejia was struggling to stay sober.
In fact, the night before she was due to arrive, Mejia had messaged her from a local hotel where people were using drugs. He told her that he’d gotten a bad vibe from a man he didn’t know who walked into the room and stared at him.
“He said the man’s energy was negative,” she said. “They kept trying to get him to get high with a large amount of drugs, and he felt something was off.”
He declined the offer, she said, and instead went to the lobby and called an aunt to pick him up, later messaging his girlfriend to say he was safe.
The next day as she was packing to come to Wyoming, however, he sent her a troubling message stating that he thought he would end up dead at the hands of people close to him.
She told him not to talk like that and cautioned him to avoid that crowd and drugs. But she fears he did not heed that advice and worries for his safety.
“I love him dearly regardless of the outcome. I just want him home, but not knowing is what’s killing me the most,” she said.
‘Really Concerning’
Both his girlfriend and father say Mejia is not one to go off the grid and not contact family under any circumstances. Nor do they believe that he would intentionally harm himself.
“It’s really concerning,” Saul said. “That’s not like Nate. He’s very active online and always keeps in touch with family.”
When asked if Mejia may have been unnerved by the couple’s first meeting and taken off, both his girlfriend and father said that was something Mejia would ever do.
“He was excited to see her,” Saul said. “He’d even gotten a haircut.”
Mejia’s girlfriend agreed. The two were eager to meet, and she said he’s not the “nervous type.”
Saul concurred that his son would not have run away, nor has he ever gone off the grid for any reason.
“She was really good for him,” Saul said of his son’s girlfriend.
Despite texting and trying to contact him every day, Mejia’s phones remain turned off. He didn’t have a bank account, but instead used a cash app that has also remained idle.
Good Kid
Despite his struggles with addiction, his girlfriend called Mejia “a good man with pure heart and a pure soul” who loves and trusts way too easily.
“He didn’t deserve this hard life,” she said.
Meanwhile, Saul continues to plaster the city with his son’s missing person posters and asked that anyone interested in helping him put out posters contact him on Facebook.
“He’s a good kid,” Saul said. “He loves spending time with his family and eating Mexican food. We just want to find him and bring him home.”
Mejia is described 5 feet, 9 inches tall and about 140 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a maroon shirt and blue sweatshirt with blue jogging pants.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Cheyenne Police Department at 307-637-6525 or Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation at 307-777-7181.
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
