Michael Wilkerson
Luthenna Joyce Morin just wants to know whether her son is dead or alive. She knows there is little chance that he is alive, but her mother’s heart won’t let her give up that fragile thread of hope.
Michael Dwayne Wilkerson was last seen on Sept. 15, 2011 in the area of Burney Road and New Hope Church Road.
A wrecked truck had his cell phone in it but there was no one in or around the truck.
Morin learned about the wreck and the phone when she filed a missing person report on Sept. 24.
Morin has been through the motions of living ever since. Thanksgiving and Christmas were just days that went by. The hardest day was Michael’s 35th birthday on Dec. 1.
“I know if he could, Michael would call me. Maybe he had a head injury in that wreck. Maybe he wasn’t even in that truck,” Morin said. “I worry about so many things that could have happened. People do get amnesia. I know if he could, he would find a way to get in touch with me.”
Det. Ed Blair said, and Morin agreed, that the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office had done all they could do without a new lead.
“We would like to know what happened, too,” Blair said. “We encourage Mrs. Morin to keep talking about Michael, to stay on the Internet, put up posters, whatever she can think to do that might get someone to come forward with information.”
The pickup truck that hit a pole on Burney Road was totaled and had been reported stolen from a residence on U.S. 220 Business near Crestview Church Road. No one was in or around the truck and no trail from it when a highway patrol trooper responded about 5:15 a.m. The last call made on Michael’s phone had been made about 2:30 a.m., Morin said. A passerby had called in the wreck.
The truck was turned over to the owner, who sold it for salvage.
The sheriff’s office sent two search teams with dogs and scoured the area. Search planes flew over looking for images of remains.
Divers searched nearby Black Lake. They found no clues to Wilkerson’s whereabouts.
Det. Derrick Hill said the case is still open.
“We are still following every lead that comes in, but so far nothing has panned out,” Hill said. “We would like to know what happened out on Burney Road and we will follow up every lead we get. Anybody who knows anything can make an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers.”
Morin said in addition to the Crime Stoppers reward, there is the possibility of an additional reward.
The last time Morin spoke to her son was about 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2011. He had had hand surgery and she was to pick him up the next morning to take him for a check-up. Their last words to each other were, “I love you,” which was the way they ended all conversations. When he didn’t call the next morning and didn’t answer her calls, she began looking for him at every place she thought he might be.
Michael was her only child, born healthy against all odds because of her own health issues, especially her heart.
“As hard a time as I had getting him here and keeping him, to lose him like this is more than I can bear,” she said.
Morin is very honest about Michael being a difficult teenager and his drug addiction as an adult. The hand surgery was for infections from drug use.
Morin and Michael’s father did all they could do, looked for every way they could help him. He was hospitalized several times, but left on his own.
Morin said the last time she went with him to his mental health counselor, he begged for help to get off drugs. When he was told there was a two-week wait for a bed, Morin said, Michael told her that would be too late.
“He was badly addicted, but he was not a drug dealer. It would mean so much if I could just know what has happened to him,” Morin said. “I am afraid too much time has gone by, but I hope someone will know something or remember something. This is just tearing my heart out.”
The Randolph County Sheriff’s Office would like to hear from anyone who has any information that might be helpful. Call (336) 318-6699 or make an anonymous call to Randolph County Crime Stoppers at (336) 672-7463.
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