Family seeks aid finding man missing from Down East

MACHIAS – Michelle Bagley drove Friday to Washington County from Glenburn to distribute pictures of her brother to convenience stores from Steuben to East Machias.

Bagley is hoping someone will recognize Frank Rossi Jr., 45, and tell her where he went after he left a Machias boarding care facility on Feb. 27.

Rossi, who suffers from a brain tumor, arrived at Marshall Manor from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor just a few hours before he walked away.

He stayed for supper and told some of the other residents he was going to walk to Glenburn, Bagley said.

Rossi hasn’t lived in Glenburn for several years, his sister said. “He could be anywhere,” Bagley said. “He was disoriented when he was at the hospital.”

The temperature dropped into the single digits the night Rossi left the 40-bed boarding home that serves residents who have physical handicaps, mental illness or mild mental retardation.

Another of Rossi’s sisters, Debbie Belanger of Caribou, said Friday that her estranged father, Frank Rossi Sr., placed her brother in the Machias boarding home after he was discharged from the hospital

Belanger said her brother lived in an assisted-living facility in Old Town before he was hospitalized for what she understands was disorientation.

The Caribou woman said she hasn’t talked with her father in six years.

Belanger and Bagley said they didn’t know their brother was in Machias or that he was missing until Bagley’s husband heard a television news report Monday. The report apparently was called in to the television station by someone connected with the family, Bagley said.

Since that time, the two sisters have been calling law enforcement agencies and trying to understand what could have become of their brother. Belanger said she doesn’t know if he had any money when he left Marshall Manor.

Cpl. Jason Scott of the Machias Police Department said residents of Marshall Manor are free to take walks, and staff at the boarding facility didn’t know he was gone until approximately 7 p.m.

Scott said he searched the main roads leading out of Machias and canvassed local stores, restaurants, motels and a bar. Information has been distributed to other law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for Rossi, but no one has reported seeing him.

Rossi is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and walks with a limp.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Machias Police Department at 255-8558 or the Maine State Police.