Michael Hernandez was taking a break from his busy schedule to unwind and watch a Chicago Blackhawks game with friends on Friday, May 1st.
The 23-year-old married father of baby twin girls then joined his friends to grab another drink at Safe House Bar and Grill in Crown Point, Indiana. He left to head home around 11:30pm.
“I saw him get into his car, I got into my car. I backed out first and that was it,” Jake Fleming, one friend with Hernandez that night, told NBC5.
Tiffany Longoria, Michael’s mother, says she spoke to him shortly after he left the bar. “He said he was coming home,” Longoria said. “He never showed up. It’s like a bad nightmare.”
Investigators say they are “actively and aggressively” pursing the case. Surveillance footage shows Hernandez leaving the bar, but that is it. His credit cards have not been used since that night. Officials pulled Hernandez’s cell phone records and picked up a “ping” about 20 miles south of where he was last seen. More than 150 people turned out to comb the fields and woods in the rural area, just outside DeMotte, Indiana, last Thursday. No solid leads turned up.
Searchers were out again this afternoon, looking through surrounding marshes on the hunt for any clues that might lead to Hernandez’s whereabouts.
“Michael, we love you, we want you home. So if you hear this, just keep fighting,” Victoria Hernandez, Michael’s wife, said, speaking directly to her husband. “He loves me, he loves his girls, this just doesn’t make any sense.”
Michael Hernandez is described as 5’8” tall, weighing 165 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He has a tattoo of a Native America with a full headdress on his left upper arm. He was last seen wearing a black coat, blue jeans, and a Blackhawks hat.
Hernandez’s blue 2008 Scion Hatch with an Indiana licenses plate is also still missing.
If you have any information that can help bring Michael home, please contact the Lake County Sheriff’s Office at (219) 755-3334. You can visit the ‘DEMOTTE FIND MIKE HERNANDEZ (OFFICIAL)’ Facebook page for more information.