Nonverbal Snellville Man, 49, Vanishes for a Week After Cigarette Run

A nonverbal 49-year-old man with health concerns has been missing from his Snellville home for more than a week, and Gwinnett County police still don't know which store he was walking to when he vanished. Kevin Thompson was last seen leaving a residence in the 3500 block of Exeter Court on August 17, headed out, according to an image caption, to buy cigarettes. He has not been seen since, and he does not carry a cellphone.

Gwinnett County police wrote that Thompson's current whereabouts are unknown and that detectives are asking for the public's help in locating him, according to CBS News Atlanta. Thompson is described as bald, with brown eyes, standing 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing around 160 pounds. He walks with a limp and was last seen wearing a red shirt, blue pants, and black and gray shoes. Anyone with information is asked to call the Gwinnett County Police Department at 770-513-5300.

The department's public request for help came eight days after Thompson's disappearance was first reported, according to Classic City News. As of Tuesday, investigators had not publicly identified which store Thompson intended to visit, nor released any confirmed sightings or indication of which direction he traveled after leaving Exeter Court, per a report from FOX 5 Atlanta. That gap leaves open the possibility that someone driving or shopping along nearby Centerville Rosebud Road or U.S. Highway 78 in the days since could hold a key piece of the puzzle.

Why Gwinnett County Police, Not Snellville Officers, Are Leading the Search

Exeter Court sits in unincorporated Gwinnett County near Centerville Rosebud Road and U.S. Highway 78, which places the neighborhood under the jurisdiction of county police rather than Snellville's municipal department, according to property records reviewed by Realtor.com. That distinction explains why Gwinnett County detectives, rather than city officers, are fielding tips and leading the search for Thompson.

Georgia law gives police no room to sit on a case like this. Under Georgia Code § 35-1-18, part of the Stacey Nicole English Act passed in 2014, law enforcement agencies are explicitly barred from enforcing any mandatory waiting period before accepting and investigating a missing person report, according to Justia Law. In other words, officers were required to begin working Thompson's case the moment it was reported, without delay.

A Statewide System Built for Cases Like This One

Thompson's case echoes the kind of vulnerable-adult disappearance that led Georgia lawmakers to create a dedicated alert system in the first place. Mattie's Call, enacted by the Georgia General Assembly in 2006, allows local law enforcement to issue an emergency public alert to help locate missing disabled adults, defined under state law as individuals who are developmentally impaired, suffer from dementia, or have cognitive impairments and are believed to be in immediate danger, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The system is named for Mattie Moore, a 67-year-old Alzheimer's patient who wandered from her Atlanta home in 2004 and was found deceased eight months later, per Wikipedia.

Use of the alert has grown substantially over the past decade. Statewide GBI data cited by 11Alive showed Mattie's Call activations rising from 222 in 2016 to 272 in 2017, a trend tied to an expanding population of vulnerable adults across the state. Research from the Alzheimer's Association, cited by the Savannah Tribune, has found that individuals with severe cognitive or communication impairments face an estimated 46% risk of serious injury or death if they aren't located within the first 24 hours of going missing — a statistic that underscores the urgency now surrounding Thompson's case more than a week later.

It remains unclear whether Thompson's disappearance has been classified as a Mattie's Call activation. What is clear is that he has no cellphone, cannot verbally communicate his location if approached, and has health concerns that make prolonged time missing especially dangerous. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is urged to contact Gwinnett County police detectives at 770-513-5300.