Daughter Not Giving Up Searching For Her 59-Year-Old Dad, Dan Davis, Missing 1 Month

CHICAGO — If this were a normal Christmas, Wendy Davis would be riding with her dad to Bloomington, IN, to spend time with family. Since her life turned upside down four weeks ago, Davis has been living in a new normal, as she searches for her father, Dan Davis, 59, who will be missing one month, barring a miracle, on Christmas Day.

“It’s been a roller coaster the past couple of days,” Davis told Patch. “I feel like my brain is spilt in half. Part of me is grieving him, and the other side is holding up hope and focusing on what we know.”

For the past month Davis has been looking for her father, last seen in person leaving 115 Bourbon Street, where Dan worked on the production crew for over 25 years, around 1:15 a.m. Nov. 25. Hours earlier, he had been involved in a head-on crash in front of the Garden Homes Fire Department, where he may have suffered a head injury but refused medical treatment.

After leaving Bourbon Street, an off-duty Cook County Sheriff’s officer yelled at Dan to get out of the intersection at 123rd Street and Kedzie Avenue. Dan waved and stumbled across. Later in the day, he was captured multiple times on Ring cameras wandering the streets and cutting through yards and alleys in Blue Island, wearing a distinctive, black Harley-Davidson Jacket over an Indiana State University hooded sweatshirt.

“He was just wandering the streets, cutting through yards, looking confused and lost,” Wendy said. “This behavior is unlike him.”

The last confirmed video sighting of Dan was around 6:30 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving, leaving mass at St. Donatus Church on Union Street in Blue Island. There have been no confirmed video sightings since of Dan. His family is now offering $500 for any confirmed video sightings of Dan Davis after Nov. 26. The Ring cam videos have been posted on FIND DAN DAVIS Facebook page.

“Someone left a comment that Dad’s sweatshirt is inside out,” his daughter said. “It’s just the outline of the letters. The inside of the hood is gray. In the videos, his hood is gray outside his jacket.”

Since her father’s disappearance, Davis has led an extensive search for her father, involving a massive network of volunteers, a sophisticated social media campaign and keeping her father’s story in the news cycle. A recent TikTok video she posted speaking about her dad and answering questions has garnered over 1 million views.

A new timeline posted in the FIND DAN DAVIS Facebook page, maintained by Davis’s mother and Dan’s former wife, Jenn Masuka, details Dan’s activities the Sunday and Monday before Thanksgiving. Friends became concerned when Dan failed to show up to watch Monday Night Football at Bourbon Street – where Dan was head of the production crew – and when he didn’t call or text. Dan, who resides in the Mid-Pointe Apartments, across the street from Marist High School, was reported missing to Chicago police.

While there has been speculation that her father may have suffered a head injury in the head-on car crash (although no one was ticketed, a witness said the other vehicle crossed the line into Dan’s lane), Davis said there was evidence at his apartment that he may have suffered a mini-stroke or some other sudden medical condition.

The refrigerator door and windows were left wide open. A fully cooked microwave dinner lay upside down on the floor.

“The [Chicago police] detective went into his house … things were left undone, but not in normal ways. It looks like something happened, like a sudden onslaught,” Davis said. “His phone last pinged at noon on Nov. 24. Maybe he fell on his phone?”

The first few days of the search hopes were high that Dan would be found as his family, friends, co-workers and complete strangers combed the streets of Blue Island. They retraced his steps where he had been captured on neighborhood security video cameras, and revisited all the locations where he had been seen. A Blue Island resident said he spoke to Dan, who appeared disoriented, who asked him for directions to Bourbon Street.

Throughout Thanksgiving weekend, volunteers distributed flyers and went door to door talking to Blue Island residents and businesses – still no Dan.

The following week, on Dec. 4, the Cook County Sheriff’s Police bloodhound picked up Dan’s scent at St. Donatus Church and tracked it to a spot behind Schrei Field, a Blue Island ballpark. The scent stopped there.

She’s searched baseball fields, parks, churches, hospitals, warehouses, waterways, greenhouse and rail yards. The search team has talked to overnight security officers, looked in Dumpsters, contacted shelters, hospitals and Metra stations. She’s driven up and down alleys and streets, calling her father’s name.

“We can’t not look where he’s been before,” she told Patch. “If he’s with someone, it would have to be a complete stranger.”

This past weekend, with a break in the single-digit temperatures and snow, more volunteers than ever showed up to continue the search, hiking forest preserve trails near Blue Island. New search zones were created in the hopes that fresh eyes might spot something overseen from past searches.

The Blue Island fire chief, on his personal time, got his boat out and with volunteer, Brandon Pustelak, searched the bottom of the Cal-Sag Channel using the chief’s underwater sonar camera.

“But all we saw was trees, rocks and fish,” Pustelak told Patch.

Davis, a professional photographer, has missed jobs, devoting all her time to looking for her lost father.

“I’ve been working a little bit, but it's our slow season,” she said. “I had to pass on a couple of jobs because I was busy searching. I had to keep myself afloat. I get all my creativity from my father.”

She shares a recent memory of driving home from Indiana with her dad, who she bonded with over music. Sick of the dead rock music playing on the radio, he asked her to get out her Bluetooth speaker and play him whatever songs “that the kids are listening to.”

Instead of traveling to Indiana for the holidays, a cousin is driving from Bloomington and posting missing person flyers at all the rest stops. Davis has canceled an upcoming trip to Florida.

“It's been weird driving around town looking for dad and seeing all the lights,” she said. “I notice them, yet there is no joyous spark, but I would do it over and over again to find my dad.”

If you have any video of Dan Davis, please email FINDDANDAVIS@gmail.com.

If you see Dan, call 911 first, then the CPD Area 2 Special Victims Unit at 312-747-8274.