Amfac sugar worker vanishes

LESTER CHANGTGI Staff Writer

LIHU’E — Police are looking for a 27-year-old Amfac employee who disappeared

while working at an Amfac sugar processing plant last

Saturday.

Investigators initially theorized that Davis Cortez Jr., of

Lihu’e, might have been killed in a cane-cutting machine at the plant near

Isenberg Tract. A boot and parts of a T-shirt belonging to Cortez were found in

a cane juice extracting machine at the Lihu’e Plantation mill, located a mile

away from the processing plant.

Once the cane is crushed and washed at the

plant, it is transported by conveyor belt to the mill, located off Kaumuali’i

Highway.

But KPD Lt. Alvin Seto said there is no evidence other than the

boot and the clothing in the mill machinery to suggest that Cortez died in an

accident at the plant.

Police said Cortez was last seen working at the

plant by another worker at 1 a.m. on April 15. When Cortez didn’t respond to a

call for assistance from his supervisor, fellow employees looked for him at the

plant, but weren’t able to find him, police said.

Employees did find

Cortez’s vehicle in the company parking lot outside the plant. The missing

man’s car keys, snacks and street clothes were in the vehicle, and his coffee

cup was found in a breakroom at the plant.

Lihu’e Plantation workers

conducted a second search for Cortez at the plant about 6:30 a.m., but weren’t

able to find him.

Cortez’s family subsequently reported the man missing to

police at about 1 p.m. Saturday.

Lihue Plantation temporarily shut down

operations at the cane processing plant Monday to allow Lt. Seto, two family

members and two Lihue Plantation employees to conduct another search of the

plant. No signs of Cortez were found.

Other than the boot, there is no sign

of him, Seto said. The case has been classified as a missing person and/or

industrial accident.