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(NewsNation) — After Kadin Black’s family joined forces with a non-profit group that specializes in finding missing people from minority communities, there is new energy in the search for the missing Pennsylvania high school student.
Kadin Black was staying with a friend’s family in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, when he simply vanished.
What happened to Kadin Black?
Kadin Black’s family describes him as a typical teenager through and through, who enjoyed football, working out, dirt bikes and goofing off. His smile always brought his family joy.
Kara Patterson, Black’s mother, recalled hearing her son laugh.
“He had the greatest laugh, I mean, it was deep,” Patterson said. “He would hold his stomach and bend over, he would laugh so hard. None of my other kids laugh like that.”
But now, the memory of Black’s laugh brings Patterson to tears. When Black disappeared, Patterson was waiting for him to come to see her in Maryland in 2022 to celebrate Christmas.
“(We) finaled up the Christmas plans, that he was coming here, that he was spending the night and everything seemed normal,” she said.
Kadin Black’s father, Maurice Black, was expecting him to come by to give the dogs some exercise. It was a Sunday tradition, even after a falling out between father and son that left Kadin Black living a couple of minutes away with a friend’s family.
“We didn’t hear from them for two days. I was like, something’s not right. This is not like him,” Maurice Black said.
Two days later, the father of the friend Kadin Black had been living with, Christopher Foust, filed a missing persons report.
Where was Kadin Black living?
Patterson had raised Kadin Black and his siblings since his parents divorced when he was three. In 2019 she moved to Maryland for a promotion, but let Kadin Black move back to Pennsylvania to live with his father after he missed his friends and life there.
Maurice and Kadin Black lived together until a disagreement sent Kadin Black to live with his friend.
Patterson believes Kadin Black’s missing cell phone holds the key to finding him.
“Chris Foust told me that he was up on Sunday morning, that he always gets up early and he was up by five or six,” she said. “Kadin had to have left either Saturday night or the early hours of Sunday morning. However, we later found out that Kadin’s cellphone was still connected to their WiFi at 9:33 a.m. Sunday morning.”
NewsNation has been unable to get in contact with Chris Foust.
Foust has said publicly that his son and Kadin Black sometimes played video games for our hall hours, so not seeing him around was not out of the ordinary.
He also said that Kadin Black’s demeanor changed in the two weeks before his disappearance.
Kadin Black’s upcoming court appearance
Kadin Black’s family does know he struggled emotionally at times, even getting arrested for a physical altercation with his school bus driver.
Yet the family felt certain an upcoming court hearing would see Kadin Black exonerated.
“It doesn’t make sense that on Dec. 17, one week after he turned 19, one week before Christmas, that he would just decide to run away,” Patterson said. “For a case that wasn’t even coming up until the end of January.”
Patterson said her son had told her he wasn’t going back to jail and said he did experience mental health challenges, including being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and autism.
She initially held back from bringing up her son’s mental health problems because of the stigma attacked but has since changed her mind about speaking more openly about his struggles.
Searching for Kadin Black
Lower Windsor Township Police Chief Jim Thomas said there is a possibility of foul play.
“During the course of the investigation and looking into things, we feel that there’s the possibility of foul play.”
In the rural community, many of the officers involved in the search knew Kadin Black through his participation in high school sports. Searches included ground and air searches, using drones, of the area where he was living, his family’s home and wooded areas in the community.
Thomas said dogs trained in electronics sniffing searched the Foust home but came up empty.
“The other part of this investigation which is disturbing is we don’t know what time he left,” Thomas said. “It could have been after that eight o’clock, eight-thirty connection. It could have been beforehand. We don’t know.”
Kadin Black’s beloved 4 Runner, the one his mother gave him, was titled under Foust’s name for insurance purposes. Months after his disappearance, Foust blocked the family on Facebook and sold the vehicle.
“If you believe he’s missing, why would you sell it?” Maurice Black wondered. “If he knew he’s coming back, you know what I mean?”
Thomas said there are no persons of interest in the case presently, including the Fousts.
Keeping hope alive
Patterson has done press conferences and vigils, pleading for anyone with information to come forward. She’s tried to keep the community looking for her son, in hopes of any sign of what happened to him.
Maurice Black has a reminder of his son inked on his body.
“I have all my kids tattooed on my arm here,” He said. “I’ve never had the feeling he was dead or anything, but I don’t know. Just certain things are not adding up in my brain right now, but I haven’t given up hope yet.”
The non-profit Kadin Black’s family is working with is called the Dock Ellis Foundation, a national organization created in honor of the late Pittsburg Pirates pitcher to assist minority families who have missing loved ones.
Anyone with information on Kadin Black should contact the Lower Windsor Township Police Department (Pennsylvania) 1-717-244-8055.