Family members from the Mainland have arrived on Kaua’i, and are following up on three key leads they hope will lead to Daniel Marks, 24, from Portland, Ore., who was last seen on the island on Nov. 10. Marks arrived
Family members from the Mainland have arrived on Kaua’i, and are following up on three key leads they hope will lead to Daniel Marks, 24, from Portland, Ore., who was last seen on the island on Nov. 10.
Marks arrived on Kaua’i on Wednesday, Nov. 9 and checked out of a Kapa’a hostel the next day. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Before Susan Marks and her brother, Ron Marks Jr., arrived on Kaua’i on Thursday, Nov. 24, Thanksgiving Day, they speculated the missing man, an avid hiker, might have hiked to Kalalau Beach on the world-renowned Na Pali Coast.
In an interview with The Garden Island, Susan Marks said she and her brother Ron Marks Jr. are checking out a theory their brother started from the Waimea Canyon Lookout and headed north through heavily wooded and mountainous terrain to get to Kalalau Beach.
She said Ric Magdaug, a former O’ahu resident who now lives on Kaua’i, picked up Daniel Marks in his vehicle in Kapa’a after Daniel Marks checked out of the hostel on Nov. 10.
“Dan was indicating to the man that he was thinking about going to Kalalau from the Waimea Canyon Lookout going south to north, which is extremely treacherous,” Susan Marks said.
Marks said she believes Magdaug’s siting of her brother has credibility.
“He saw the article and (recalled that) Dan talked about going to Portland State University and going to Honduras,” Marks said.
Daniel Marks was to have started graduate school at Portland State University in January. Following his trip to Kaua’i, he was to have flown with his sister and her fiancee to Colorado for their wedding, and then fly to Honduras, where his new brother-in-law hails from.
Another lead has emerged that could help locate Daniel Marks, his sister said. She said a doctor at the Kauai Medical Clinic at the Kukui Grove Professional Village treated her brother on Wednesday, Nov. 16.
Daniel Marks visited the doctor to be treated for a rash on his legs and back that developed after being bitten by insects found in a sleeping bag he had used, Susan Marks said.
“They don’t have any record of his name, but they are certain they saw him,” she said. “The doctor (whose full identity was not known) said he would go through the records and try to track him down.”
She said the health professionals don’t necessarily remember what he looked like, but they “remembered what he said, that he was 24 years and that he had talked about going camping.”
Susan Marks said she, her brother Ray Marks Jr., and two Kaua’i Police Department officers visited the doctor’s office Tuesday morning to get more information.
A third lead that fuels hope that Daniel Marks is still on the island has been provided by a Kaua’i woman who said she picked up Daniel Marks in her vehicle soon after he left the Lihu’e Airport on Nov. 9 and began hitchhiking.
“He told her that he was going to meet a guy from Maui who had a camping permit,” Susan Marks said, “and that they would be sharing a camping permit for Hanakapia’i.”
Police investigators are going to talk with state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of State Parks officials to obtain the identity of the Maui hiker, she said.
Susan Marks said she doesn’t know for sure, but she believes that “he (the Maui man) is the guy whom Dan corresponded with on the Internet. Dan met friends on the Internet for traveling, and that was very common for Dan,” Marks said.
She said the woman who picked up her brother on the road outside the airport called police after hearing Daniel Marks had been reported missing.
Susan Marks said police investigators relayed the woman’s story to her, and that she spoke with the woman on Tuesday morning to get a sense of where her brother might be.
From their own investigations, Susan Marks and Ray Marks Jr. said they have found telltale signs strongly indicating he is still on Kaua’i.
Apparently having power of attorney, she and her brother have monitored bank transactions their brother might have made. “He hasn’t used his credit card, or taken out any money from the bank,” she said.
Marks is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs between 130 and 140 pounds, has brown eyes and hair and a beard. He has tattoos on his upper arms, contradicting earlier reports by authorities that he had tattoos on his temples. Marks is of Caucasian descent.
Daniel Bernard, who described himself as an uncle to the missing man, said in an e-mail to The Garden Island that his family didn’t know about Daniel Marks’ planned trip to Hawai’i.
Bernard said his nephew didn’t use his return-flight ticket to San Francisco on Wednesday, Nov. 16, and that he was discovered missing when he did not take his ticketed flight from San Francisco to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.
Bernard said Daniel Marks’ mother and aunt drove from Duluth, Minn. to meet Marks at the airport.
Marks was reported missing by Susan Marks on Tuesday, Nov. 22.
The missing man likes to compose computer-generated music, backpack and hike.
Folks with information on the whereabouts of Daniel Marks may contact the Kaua’i Police Department’s Investigative Services Bureau at 241-1677, or Claire Ueno, a KPD missingpersons investigator, at 241-1696. Susan Marks may be reached at 1-210-591-6554.
A search Web site has been established by family members: http://groups.yahoo/com/group/DanielMarks, and a group e-mail address set up, DanielMarks@yahoogroups.com.
