(NewsNation) — An Arizona man stopped to watch a sunset with his nephew but soon after, the tranquil moment turned into a desperate search after Khayman Welch disappeared.
Khayman was a loving son, a proud friend and an artist who drew charcoal sketches and sculpted while also working as a tattoo artist.
Family friend Mike Cotter watched Khayman grow up and was thrilled to give him some work finishing a tattoo sleeve.
“I basically told Khay, ‘Hey, let’s do this. You can have my whole arm,'” Cotter said. “So he was working on filling everything in.”
But the project is on permanent pause after what happened in the Tonto National Forest on a sizzling summer night in August of 2020.
Khayman’s mother, Rhiannon Lewallen said Welch is the type to do his own thing.
“Khay has a tendency to do his own thing and wander off,” she said.
That August night, Lewallen got a call at her Wyoming home. She heard her son had spent the day with his uncle, doing some repair work on a cooler at the Tortilla Flat Saloon in Arizona.
On the drive home, Brian Welch reported a stop at Weaver’s Needle Vista, where then-25-year-old Khayman wanted to see the sun set over the Superstition Mountains. The pair got out of the car to read a sign.
A moment later, Khayman was gone.
Khayman Welch worked as a tattoo artist. (Mike Cotter) 
Khayman Welch disappeared in Arizona in August 2020. (Mike Cotter) 
Khayman Welch was with his uncle when he vanished (Mike Cotter) 
Mike Cotter has an unfinished tattoo, waiting for Khayman to return. (Mike Cotter) 
Khayman and his uncle stopped to watch a sunset when he disappeared. (Mike Cotter)
“This was about three hours in, when things really started to become more and more real,” Lewallen said. “It was dark out, really dark. The weather was just insanely hot, so the urgency became more and more severe.”
Khayman would have had no water and no food. Brian Welch called deputies, saying he had no idea where his nephew went. The deputies used canines to search, focusing on an area to the southeast.
A Maricopa County helicopter searched using thermal imaging, getting negative results due to the extreme heat of the desert floor.
Mindy Castillo joined the search as soon as deputies would allow volunteers to help.
“We searched really early in the morning and by 9:30 or so, it was already getting way too hot,” she said.
Team members were dealing with rugged terrain, scorpions, snakes, signs of mountain lions and imposing abandoned mines.
But the biggest foe searchers faced was the heat, soaring to 113 F as the sun rose the day after Khayman’s disappearance. The next day, the temperature hit 115 F, the heat tying or breaking records for days.
“We were told not to go out there. Because they didn’t want anybody else to go missing or get any type of heat-related illness,” Castillo said.
After the heat came fire, flames tearing through the Superstition Mountains for nearly a month, halting the search and scorching nearly 10,000 acres.
“The fire didn’t actually go into the immediate area of where Khay disappeared from,” Castillo said. “But it was very close.”
Meanwhile, Lewallen was learning what was on her son’s electronics, including searches about suicide and cryptic messages to his younger brother.
“(It was the) worst time in my life and it hasn’t ended,” she said.
But the searches didn’t make any sense to Lewallen.
“He was actively seeking help and taking the responsible path,” she said. “This doesn’t feel right.”
Another possible clue to Khayman’s disappearance came from the Superstition Mountains themselves.
Legends abound about the “Lost Dutchman Mine” and more than one person searching for the rumored cache of gold has met with foul play and even death.
After his disappearance, the family learned of Khayman’s interest in the mine.
“My first thought was, I hope they weren’t out there trying to find the lost Dutchman Gold,” Cotter said.
But Lewallen thinks there is no way her son would have left his uncle to search for the legendary lost gold mine. She’s gone in non-stop circles trying to trace her son’s steps.
“I can’t even put words on to the struggle it is to not know, when a piece of your soul is missing,” she said.
For those whose lives Khayman touched, like Cotter, they’re hoping he’ll come back to finish his projects. like Cotter’s tattoo.
Khayman Welch is six feet tall, and weighs 170 pounds. He has brown hair cut in a buzz cut and is balding,. He has hazel green eyes with full arm sleeves of tattoos.
