Great-grandfather, 86, missing in Maryland for 3 weeks

An 86-year-old Charles County man has been missing since going for his afternoon walk in chilly weather three weeks ago.

LaWan Bowman said she kept her father, Richard Wilson Jr., on the phone for hours when he didn’t return home Jan. 25, trying to get him to describe his whereabouts as police from four agencies frantically searched for him on foot and from the air.

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“We had him on the phone for four hours,” she said. “The police officers were there at the house. One officer had the opportunity to talk with him. And I asked were there any homes or stores or anything near him, and he told me no. He said that he had slipped on some ice, the ice had cracked. So, he was wet, and I could hear him blowing in his hands, trying to keep his hands warm.”

Wilson, a great-grandfather, couldn’t be found.

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For days, police divers, search dogs and officers on four-wheelers scoured areas along the Potomac River near the Tantallon community in Prince George’s County, where Wilson’s cellphone data placed him.

Wilson has memory issues and vision problems, Bowman said. She believes he may have been trying to walk from Waldorf to the Eastover Shopping Center in Oxon Hill, where his daughters take him once a month to play lottery and keno.

Wilson is 5-feet-6-inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. He may be wearing a tan winter coat, blue hat and blue jeans.