A 69-year-old Macon man diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and dementia has been found safe with his family after walking away from his Monroe Avenue home Friday night, according to the Bibb County Sheriff's Office. James Pleas, who also goes by the nickname Silkman, was last seen around 8:30 p.m. wearing red pajamas, a camouflage hat, and possibly green pants, and carrying a camouflage backpack.
The resolution came after The Georgia Sun first reported Pleas missing, describing him as 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing between 170 and 180 pounds, with black and gray hair and a matching beard. He had also been seen wearing a black WWE t-shirt with blue outlines. The Bibb County Sheriff's Office later confirmed that Pleas had been found and was reunited with his family, though details on exactly where or how he was located were not disclosed.
Investigator Raymond Cross had been listed as the point of contact for the search, reachable at (478) 808-2566, while the sheriff's office's main line remained available at (478) 751-7500 for anyone with information. Cross also led a separate missing-person investigation in Macon this past July involving 47-year-old Lavar James, underscoring how the same small team of investigators often juggles multiple vulnerable-adult cases at once, per the same account from the earlier report.
Why Wandering Poses Such Urgent Risk
Cases like Pleas's are far from rare. According to the Alzheimer's Association, roughly 60 percent of people living with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia will wander away from home at least once during the course of their illness. The behavior can strike at any stage of cognitive decline, whether the person leaves on foot or ends up on public transit.
The stakes of a delayed recovery are severe. Research published in PubMed Central found that missing individuals with dementia face a 46 to 50 percent risk of serious injury or death if they are not located within 24 hours, since exposure and the loss of essential medical care can compound quickly once someone is disoriented and alone.
Georgia's Alert System Built for Cases Like This
Georgia has had a legal mechanism designed specifically for situations like Pleas's since 2006, when the General Assembly passed House Bill 728 to create Mattie's Call, a statewide emergency alert for missing disabled or elderly adults, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. The system is named for Mattie Moore, a 67-year-old Atlanta woman with Alzheimer's disease who wandered from her home in 2004 and was not found until eight months later, when she was discovered deceased in a nearby wooded area. Her death spurred lawmakers to model an adult alert system after Amber Alerts.
Under Georgia Code § 35-3-171, local law enforcement can only activate a Mattie's Call after confirming that a cognitively impaired person is missing, in immediate danger of death or serious injury, and entered into the National Crime Information Center database, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Officers must also rule out other explanations for the disappearance before broadcasting the alert statewide. When Georgia adopted the system in 2006, it became only the second state in the nation after Colorado to establish a dedicated, statewide notification system for missing cognitively impaired adults, according to reporting from The Savannah Tribune.
Use of the system has grown steadily. Statewide Mattie's Call activations rose from 222 in 2016 to 272 in 2017, a trend that 11Alive attributed to Georgia's aging population and expanding police use of the tool.
Local Track Record in Bibb County
Bibb County has handled similar cases recently. In June, the sheriff's office safely located two men, ages 75 and 66, who had gone missing separately in the county, according to 13WMAZ. The sheriff's office also maintains a policy allowing family members to file missing persons reports immediately, without a mandatory waiting period, when a vulnerable adult or suspicious circumstances are involved, according to Macon County government guidance — a protocol that runs counter to a common public misconception that police require 24 hours to pass before taking a report.
