Student's disappearance still a mystery to family

By: Chelsea Lankes

Posted: 2/19/07

On the night of Jan. 14, Mark Davis, a 20-year-old senior at Texas A&M, went to dinner at Olive Garden with his family in his hometown of Tyler. The next morning Davis was not in his room when his parents went to wake him up. Instead, they found a goodbye note. The note expressed his love toward his parents and family, and claimed it was nobody's fault that he left, but that it was just something he had to do.

Don Martin, an officer at the Tyler Police Department, said the police are at a stalemate, having explored all the leads given to them in Tyler and College Station.

"Mark isn't using credit cards, a cell phone, anything to track him," Martin said.

Davis was an excellent student with a 3.7 GPR, and a majority of his hours were devoted to liberal arts courses. Although he was an economics major, he recently decided to switch to foreign language because of his interest in learning Spanish. His father, Randy Davis, said he thinks the uncertainty of Mark's future and his change of major could possibly be the cause of his desire to get away.

"Mark stopped going to most of his classes after Thanksgiving," Randy Davis said. "Later we found out he only completed one of his courses, a Spanish class in which he earned an A. There was no confrontation between us, and since he had so many hours we just told him to take a year off and figure things out."

Aaron Sanders, one of Davis' former roommates at the Callaway House, said Davis' disappearance did not seem to make sense based on his character.

"He was always pleasant to be around. He was very funny and easy going," said Sanders, a sophomore industrial engineering and business major. "Mark never seemed unhappy in the slightest way. That's truly what bothers me the most. I can't imagine what sparked that kind of behavior."

During Thanksgiving, Davis seemed to be in good spirits at his family reunion. That weekend, he took a quick trip to South Padre Island with his family, and spent time on the beach before returning to A&M to finish the fall semester. When Davis came home for the Christmas break, he seemed to be fine, Randy Davis said.

After Christmas day, however, Davis went into a state of depression. Karen Davis, Mark's mother, noticed his dramatic change of behavior.

"He seemed to withdraw from family and friends," Karen Davis said. "Even when approached with the idea of taking a ski trip with his family, Mark didn't get excited."

Davis left his wallet, cell phone and money behind, but took his bike. The Tyler police have searched surrounding areas for any sign of Davis or his bike but efforts have proven futile.

"No one called to say they picked him up on the highway," Martin said. "A couple reports of some people thought they saw him in an emergency room, but after looking at the surveillance tapes, turns out none of them were Davis."

Investigators were concerned Davis might harm himself, based on the tone of the statements in his note. Authorities and family think Davis might have gone to Mexico, because he had such an interest in Latin America and was fluent in Spanish. How he would have gotten there with no identification or money remains a mystery. Davis's mother and father still have hopes of finding their son.

"I must do everything I possibly can to find some shred of evidence that Mark is alive," Davis's father said. "That is why we constructed a website with a sophisticated e-mail forwarding program to reach as many people as possible, just praying that one person somewhere out there will have seen him. We just need people to register on the website and simply forward some e-mails for Mark."