JOe. Where are you? Everyone is looking for you. please stop this crazy joke. (Jan. 9, 2006)
Every week or so, Detective Robbie Davis of the Bremerton, Washington, police department visits Joe Pichler's MySpace page. For a sign. For a clue. For a teenager lost.
"I'm just looking to see if he gets on it," says Davis. "Then I'm looking to see what they're saying."
They are the friends and family of Pichler, the former child actor who went missing nearly three months ago from his Northwest hometown. They leave messages. They extend birthday wishes. They post pictures of a long-ago summer that was just last year.
"What I'm seeing," Davis says, "is they're just as perplexed as I am. And some of them are starting to get upset."
JOE...TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE...IM COMIN OUT TO LOOK FOR YOU! (Jan. 10, 2006)
In the MySpace community, 63 million member pages strong, Joe Pichler is everydude.
His screen name is "McBadass."
His stated preferences are the Beatles, beer and "hott gerls."
His favorite books--he doesn't say. His favorite movies--he does. They're ones he made as a regularly employed child actor of the 1990s and early 2000s: among them, Varsity Blues, in which he played James Van Der Beek's crucifix-fixated younger brother; and Beethoven's 3rd and Beethoven's 4th, in which he played the franchise dog's best human friend.
His sign is Aquarius.
He hasn't logged in since Jan. 3.
"i walk down to the water everyday and yell for you hoping your okay...this is really scaring me." (Jan. 16, 2006)
In the early morning of Jan. 4, police say, Pichler, 18, talked to a friend on a cell phone. The conversation ended. After, there was no after. By all accounts, nobody's heard from or seen Pichler since.
On Jan. 9, police say, Pichler was reported missing. Later, his car, a silver 2005 Toyota Corolla, was found parked about a half-mile from where a bridge overlooks the waters of Port Washington Narrows.
Pichler's mother, Kathy Pichler, says police told her off the bat that her son was a suicide. Police say they never said that.
Kathy Pichler does not believe her son was suicidal. She also doesn't believe police have done enough--anything, actually--to find her son, to provide her family with updates, to look at "evidence pointing in other directions."
Detective Davis says he's exhausted every resource he can think of--from FBI profilers to MySpace.
"I'm just hoping something will pop up," Davis says.
Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy BIRTHDAY DEAR JOOOOE!!! Happy Birthday... toooo YOU!!! (Feb. 14, 2006)
Pichler turned 19 on Valentine's Day.
There was birthday cake. There was no Joe.
In the end, one of his sisters posted a picture of the cake: "I thought you might want to see what it looked like..."
so you should come back today cuz i dotn have anything to do. & we could so hangout. (Feb. 17, 2006)
Cammie Walsh has known Joe Pichler since the seventh grade.
"When we were younger, he was known as 'the movie star,'" Walsh says in an email. "But as we got older, he was known for his 'spunkiness.' "
Last Christmas Day, the two went to the movies--they caught The Producers. Walsh says she saw Pichler a few days after that, and then, like everyone else, nothing.
These days, she is among Pichler's most devoted MySpace correspondents--even if the conversation is one-way. She shares random thoughts and old pictures--"I want him to know I miss him," she says.
Tanya Bourgeois, another friend, calls up the page when she's feeling sad, or when she wants to see Pichler's face--"since it's been so long."
"When I leave messages, it's not like I'm talking to a missing person," Bourgeois says in an email. "It's like he's still here."
Walsh and Bourgeois say they'll continue to post as long as the page is up. Because, they say, they hope their friend is checking in. Because, they say, they believe their friend is out there.
"We all just want him to know he's loved and missed," Bourgeois says. "And maybe he can find comfort in whatever situation he may be in."
hey guess what...i am gonna tell you right now that i am not gonna believe what any of these people are sayin until YOU tell me or let me know YOURSELF!! (Feb. 23, 2006)
There was a rumor Pichler, who'd moved back to Bremerton with his family in 2002, had headed back to California. So far, police say, it's just a rumor.
There were reports that investigators had found what amounted to a suicide note in Pichler's abandoned car. Police say those reports were incorrect.
What police found, Davis says, was poetry.
And while the poem expressed an "I'm fed up" sentiment, Davis says, it wasn't a farewell. Sgt. Kevin Crane says the writing did not speak to Pichler's state of mind.
Detective Davis says police found "other documentation," in addition to the poem, but he won't discuss the "other documentation" in any detail. Whatever it is, it hasn't led him to the teenager.
Pichler remains Davis' only active missing persons' case.
Bourgeois says that if, for whatever reason, Pichler didn't want to be found, he'd find a way to make sure he wasn't.
"He's someone who gets what he wants," Bourgeois says. "And he's very intelligent, too."
Come back home joe so [we] can go on that trip we planned. (Mar. 6, 2006)
In the months leading up to Pichler's disappearance, Walsh says her friend was maturing--"living alone with a 9-5 job." Bourgeois says her friend was the same as he ever was--"very happy."
Kathy Pichler says her son, a recent high school grad, had a plan--to get back into acting. "He's got an entire apartment in storage in Los Angeles," she says.
In Hollywood, Pichler had a rep, at least in writer-director David Mickey Evans' eyes, for being a "solid little young man."
"He wasn't what you'd conceive [of] the typical child actor," says Evans, who directed Pichler in the two Beethoven straight-to-video movies. "He was just a normal little kid, a normal little boy."
"I don't recall a single moment where he wasn't really happy to be there."
Kathy Pichler says she doesn't recall her son not being happy, either.
I LOVE YOU. I MISS YOU. COME HOME. WHERE ARE YOU. (Mar. 18, 2006)
Kathy Pichler knows why her son's friends keep reaching out to the missing teen.
"I think that they're believing the same way I am," she says. "In this situation, it's hard to get from today to tomorrow and [not] to automatically assume for the worst."
"I think teenagers have to hold out for [hope]...I think leaving messages is their way of holding out hope."
About six weeks ago, Kathy Pichler established her own MySpace page. Devoted to her "baby Joe," it's a funhouse of family pictures, family tattoos, dancing graphics--and links to the National Center for Missing Adults and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
"I'm waiting for a miracle," Kathy Pichler says.
gawwwwwd i love you. f--k. (Mar. 25, 2006)
Detective Davis' phone hasn't rung with a new tip in three or four weeks. Davis tells a reporter it's okay to publish his number--360-473-5361. He's got nothing--nothing that would stand up.
"He's gone," Davis says. "He's vanished."
As of Friday, Joe Pichler still hasn't logged in since Jan. 3.