On Oct. 31, 16-year-old Luis Tario, a junior at Ashbrook High School, told his parents that he was going to visit a friend. He was supposed to be back by 6:30 p.m.
He never came home.
When they checked his room, his parents and siblings found envelopes with their names on them. Inside the envelopes were letters.
“He said he didn’t see a point in school, in graduating, in getting a job,” said his sister, Nataly Tario. “We are just frantic and trying to find him.”
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Gastonia Police are looking for Tario, whose family thinks he is having a mental health crisis.
Luis Tario, 16, may be experiencing a mental health crisis, his family said.
“It’s been devastating trying to hold on as a unit,” Nataly Tario said.
Luis Tario is around 6 feet tall with dark hair and a lean, muscular build, said his father, Alfredo Tario.
“He’s very shy, very withdrawn, very quiet,” Alfredo Tario said.
He was driving a dark gray-colored 2017 Nissan Rogue with the tag number 3CH33RS.
Luis Tario is an honor student at Ashbrook, and he spends most of his time at home, at work or at school. His family noticed no signs that he was depressed or wanting to harm himself prior to his disappearance.
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“So it’s kind of taken us all by extreme surprise that this is happening right now,” Alfredo Tario said.
Alfredo and his wife, Evelyn Tario, checked with the parents of the friend Luis said he was visiting. They told the Tarios that there were no plans for Luis to visit that night.
Luis Tario is thought to be driving this 2017 Nissan Rogue.
“It is something that he made up,” Alfredo Tario said.
His brother, Noel Tario, said that Luis came out of his shell around him.
Luis Tario, 16, has been missing from Gastonia since Oct. 31. He may be in the North Carolina mountains.
“He tried to tell me at times in the jokes that he said and the things that he did,” Noel Tario said. I’m just so regretful … that I didn’t read further into the lines.”
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Luis Tario wrote in his letters that he may be going somewhere around an hour away from Gastonia, in an area with higher elevation, his family said.
Gastonia Police ask that anyone who spots Luis Tario call the police department at 704-866-6702.
This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gastonia teenager missing since Halloween
