There shouldn’t have been anything unusual about this teenager’s summer evening.
It was July 1993. Aron Silverman, a 17-year-old from Norfolk, was at a party. His friends saw him chatting with a girl. The two went outside.
And that, authorities say, was the last time anyone saw Silverman, whose disappearance has puzzled investigators for nearly two decades.
All of a sudden, “he wasn’t there, and no one has any idea what may have happened to him,” said Melinda Stevens, director of the Missing Children’s Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
His case was classified as a runaway, though Stevens said there was no specific event that may have sparked him to leave home.
His parents didn’t report him missing for weeks, the Virginian-Pilot reported in 1995. Silverman had dropped out of school, used drugs and fought with his father about money.
“I figured he’d show up,” his mother, Debbie, told the newspaper.
But over time, his family and friends became concerned because he never called home, or tried to contact any of his friends, and had left without taking anything with him.
Silverman often spent time at the beach, fishing and boating, and investigators have conducted numerous searches for him, Stevens said.
Silverman would be 36 years old now. When he disappeared, he was described as white, 5 feet 10 inches tall and 130 pounds, with blond hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information can call NCMEC at 800-THE-LOST (843-5678).
