As the hours passed Saturday, and her brother remained missing, Emily Samarzia of Duluth was getting more and more worried.
"Police have no idea what happened," she told the News Tribune. "He is a very passive person. He doesn't have enemies. There isn't anything we can come up with as to why he should be missing."
That was long before the Twin Cities media reported that Matthew W. Anderson, 29, of Shoreview, Minn., may have been abducted sometime Friday, possibly from the condominium complex where he works.
By Saturday afternoon, the FBI and Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension had been brought in and law enforcement agencies nationwide had been alerted.
"At this point, it's a missing person under suspicious circumstances case," said Undersheriff George Altendorfer of the Ramsey County Sheriff's Deparment, which is heading the investigation. "The story is rolling out as though it were an abduction or kidnapping. He is missing. We cannot locate him."
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Anderson was last seen leaving work in Roseville, Minn., at 1:30 p.m. Friday and was supposed to pick up his 1-year-old daughter from daycare at 3 p.m. He never got there. At 7 p.m., his wife, Amber, got a call from him on his cellphone.
He said he didn't have long to talk, that he had been taken by two men and thought they were going to hurt him; then the call abruptly ended, according to family and authorities.
"Apparently he said, 'no, no, no, and the phone went dead,'" Altendorfer said.
That's when authorities were called.
It was later learned that the call had been made from the Wisconsin Dells area, he confirmed.
"He could not just disappear," said Anderson's mother, Kathy Hochstetler of Milltown, Wis. "There were no complaints against him. Everybody loved him."
Samarzia said authorities were skeptical at first. Now they're seeking the public's help in locating Anderson, who is white, 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, and was driving a 2001 maroon Pontiac Montana van, Minnesota license plate 922 DUZ.
"They completely thought that he had run away, and they have completely ruled that out," Samarzia said of law enforcement.
