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On May 6,2000, the ATM in Lenox Mall automatically snapped this photograph

of Georgia Tech student Joe Morse. His family has not seen or heard from him since.

of Joe Morse

Six weeks before the end of the 2000 school year, Georgia Tech freshman Joe Morse

disrupted his academic career. At the semester's end — as his mother awaited his arrival

in an Ohio airport — he withdrew $120 from an ATM machine in Atlanta and vanished.

Summer 2001 • GEORGIA TECH 4 1

"There's a void ... you look out and

there's nothing. You just don't know."

By Maria M. Lameiras

In his family's dreams, Joe Morse is home. Both asleep and awake, the thought is with them every day that maybe this will be the day the phone will ring and he will be on the line or he

will walk back through the door of their home in Maineville, Ohio.

Joe disappeared from the Georgia Tech campus on May 6, 2000. His last known where­abouts was at an ATM machine in Atlanta's Lenox Mall at 10:58 a.m., just about the same time his mother, Debbie Morse, was waiting for him to get off a stand-by flight at the Day­ton International Airport.

Since that last bank withdrawal of $120, neither the Georgia Tech or Atlanta police nor the FBI have been able find any trace of the young man who chose Georgia Tech both for its academic challenges and the thrill of the energetic city that surrounds the campus.

His family has spent each day since waiting for a sign.

"There's just a void. It's like walking to the edge of a precipice, you look out and there's nothing. You just don't know," says Joe's fa­ther, Wayne Morse.

In the months that have followed, the Morses have come to realize the events leading up to Joe's disappearance paint a disturbing picture of a bright, easygoing kid who quietly became overwhelmed.

Joe's interest in Georgia Tech was born during his junior year at Archbishop Moeller High School, a closely knit boys Catholic high school in Cincinnati. He had decided to study engineering and began researching his college choices.

"He went online and found the highest-ranked schools in engineering in the country," Debbie says. "He made a list and then, the summer before his senior year, he and Wayne started visiting schools."

When he returned, Joe applied to the University of Dayton, University of Cincinnati, Iowa State University, Georgia Tech and California Polytechnic. Although he

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The Lenox ATM automatically snapped photographs of Joe Morse on the day he was to return home to Ohio. It is the last known location of the Tech freshman.

4 2 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 2001

Easter Sunday "we got to the airport with about three minutes to spare, gave Joe a hug, he jumped

on the plane and we watched it take off." That was the last time the Morses saw their son.

was accepted by all of the schools and offered scholarships by Dayton, Cincinnati and Iowa, Joe chose Georgia Tech.

Debbie has all of the acceptance letters in Joe's scrap-book, an album filled with photos that track Joe from baby­hood to the Georgia Tech campus and pages sprinkled with Tech-colored confetti and a cutout of Buzz. She ran her hands over the photos as she remembered.

"He liked Iowa State, but when you get off campus you're in cornfields," Debbie says. "He wanted to be in a bigger city where there would be something to do off cam­pus. Tech was his first choice even when he wasn't offered a scholarship."

Debbie and Wayne sat down with Joe after he'd made his choice and talked to him about financing his education.

"We told him how much we had to send him to school and how much his contribution would have to be," Debbie says.

Joe's determination to attend Tech showed through his financial planning.

"He had a savings account with some money set aside and he got a job at the mall in Cincinnati for the summer. He saved all the money he made and by the end of the sum­mer he had his contribution for the first two years put away," Debbie says proudly. "That was his goal, he was very happy. He also planned to co-op and he knew he'd have the money from the co-op job, too."

As the time approached for Joe to leave for Tech, Debbie worried about how her son would adjust to being so far away from home, normal parental nervousness surrounding the first of her three children going out of state to school. The Morses' older son, Ben, is a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, a little more than 200 miles from home.

"It was farther away, but once you have one go to college you're broken in a little," Debbie says. "I felt apprehensive, but I was OK."

Once the fall semester started, the fear melted away into pleasant surprise. "He would call up and tell us about the different projects he was working on and what he was doing out­side of class. He was elected hall council presi­

dent of his dorm, which kind of surprised me because he's always been involved in things, but he's not really the kind to be the leader," Debbie says. "Then he told me no one else really wanted to do it. I thought that made more sense be­cause Joe would always pitch in when he was needed; he'd do whatever he thought would make other people happy."

That first semester, Joe made the Dean's List with a 3.37 grade point average, completing chemistry, introduction to

computing, English composition I, health and calculus I. Joe's visit home for the winter break went well, Debbie

says, and in the spring he registered for English composi­tion II, calculus II, introduction to physics I, United States government, and his first engineering class, introduction to engineering graphics.

The first half of the spring semester passed uneventfully. When the grades were passed in to the dean for the first half of the semester, Joe's were good. He headed home for spring break, hanging out with friends before driving back to Atlanta with Debbie on Friday.

"He was anxious to get back because they were sup­posed to get their co-op offers back," Debbie says.

An avid athlete who was on the cross country and la­crosse teams in high school and played intramural football at Tech, Joe went running after having dinner with his mom, taking a route past the post office to check his mail. When he returned, they went to see the Tech baseball team play. Debbie stayed overnight at a hotel and, because no one else was back at the residence hall, Joe did, too. Debbie left Sunday morning.

Later the Morses would discover that something went wrong during the six weeks between spring break and Easter.

Joe began to let things slide. He kept up with his work in his engineering class because other students depended on him for group projects. He continued to go to that class until the end of the semester, but did not show up for the final exam. He did his online homework for calculus and physics, but stopped going to class. He dropped out of his English and government classes entirely. And, most telling to his parents, Joe stopped running.

"It was as if he prioritized what was most important to him because there was just not enough energy to do every­thing," Debbie says. She feels the impersonal nature of large classes made his absence less noticeable.

Calls home still came on a regular basis, and when the Morses called, Joe would tell them he was OK, his grades were fine. He discussed his plans to take classes in the sum­mer so he could co-op with Caterpillar in the fall, a bit of a scheduling task because co-ops usually take place in the summer, but Caterpillar didn't want him to start until later. He said he was making arrangements to keep his dorm room over the summer. He even paid the advance fee re­quired to register for housing for the next academic year.

Now, when she looks back on her conversations with her son or examines his conversations with others, Debbie ago­nizes that she should have recognized something was wrong or picked up on some hidden signal.

44 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 2001

Maria M. Lameiras

Joe's parents, Wayne and Debbie Morse, hold the "missing student" poster they have circulated in their attempts to find Joe.

"Each student has a password they use to get into the computer system at Tech to check on grades and to check fee schedules and things. Most students don't give those to their parents because they don't have to, but Joe gave us his," Debbie says. "Around that time I tried to use the pass­word to get in and check something and it didn't work. I asked Joe about it and he said the system was down. It made sense because that had happened before."

Joe went home for Easter, flying to Dayton on Friday night, April 21. It was a long trip for a short visit home, but Joe wanted to play golf with his father, brother and a group of friends who came together every year for what they dubbed "The Easter Open," a round of golf in which top honors go to the worst golfer.

Debbie recalls that her son slept more than usual that weekend, but he didn't seem any more tired than any col­lege student nearing the end of a challenging freshman year.

"He seemed relaxed and at ease," Wayne says, remem­bering Easter Sunday. "In typical fashion, we got to the airport with about three minutes to spare, gave him a hug, he jumped on the plane and we watched it take off."

That was the last time the Morses saw their son.

On Thursday, May 4, the end of final exams week, Joe called home to finalize travel plans with his mom. He and a group of friends planned to go out in Atlanta Friday night, and on Saturday he would fly into Dayton Interna­

tional Airport on AirTran, which offered the cheapest standby fares for young adults. If he wasn't able to get on any of the four flights from Atlanta that day, he would go to the Greyhound station and take the overnight bus back to Ohio. Joe also e-mailed a couple of friends to say they should get together while he was home.

On Saturday morning, Debbie got up and got ready to go to the airport.

"I didn't have to leave until almost 10 and he was sup­posed to call if he didn't get onto the 9 o'clock flight," she says. "He didn't call, so I left."

At the airport, Debbie waited at the gate, but Joe didn't get off the plane. The gate attendants checked the flight list. Joe wasn't on it.

"Joe is pretty responsible, so I thought maybe I'd left the house too early and missed his call," she says. Debbie called home, but Joe's younger sister, Allie, said he hadn't called.

Debbie settled in to wait for the next flight to come in early that afternoon. She didn't wait long.

Summer 2001 'GEORGIA TECH 45

"Joe made it seem to those around him like he was keeping up with his Tech schedule. He would

leave like he was going to class and no one knows where he went off to. He kept up a facade."

"Allie called me on my cell phone and told me someone from Georgia Tech's housing office had called looking for Joe. She said they didn't have him on the list as staying in the dorms for the summer and they needed his stuff out of his room/' Debbie says. "She said, 'Mom, something's very wrong.'"

It was the beginning of a gut-wrenching journey that would only get worse. Debbie started by calling the housing office. Housing officers said they had awak­ened all of the students in the dorm at 8 a.m. to meet the deadline for clearing out of the residence hall for

the summer. Dorm mates recall seeing Joe head for the showers at about 8:30 a.m., but no one remembers seeing him afterward.

She called Hartsfield International Airport to have Joe paged. He didn't answer. She waited for the next flight, but again he wasn't listed on the passenger manifest.

Debbie called Wayne, who had gone to work early at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati so he could be home when Joe arrived from the airport. She filled him in as she drove for home and he left work to meet her.

"We called Georgia Tech housing again and asked if anyone had been in his room or if they had called the po­lice," Debbie says. They hadn't, so the Morses did. Tech police sent an officer over to check the room and he called the Morses back.

"He said it looked like everything was there. There was a damp towel on the floor and some dirty clothes. He found a checkbook, but not a wallet," Debbie says. The Morses wanted to file a missing person report, but the officer ex­plained they had to wait 24 hours.

The family was frustrated with comments from Tech police that Joe would turn up, that he had probably "gone home with someone or gone somewhere for the weekend."

After a fitful few hours trying to sleep, Debbie and Wayne headed to the Greyhound station to see if Joe was on the overnight bus. He wasn't and Wayne drove Debbie to the airport for a flight to Atlanta.

In Atlanta, Debbie headed straight for the Georgia Tech police station. She talked to the officer who had searched Joe's room, who called in Investigator Lenford Forbes. Dean of Students Gail DiSabatino was contacted at home. DiSabatino listened to the story and called Registrar Jo Mclver at home. Mclver came in to the office and together, she and DiSabatino called Joe's professors at home to check on his records. Several professors came to their offices to retrieve grade books so they could check Joe's grades imme­diately.

"That's when we realized that he just didn't show up for classes after spring break," Debbie says.

After their son Ben arrived to be with Allie, Wayne drove to Atlanta Sunday night to join Debbie.

On Monday, the couple went to the housing office to get Joe's things, which had been stored in an attic closet to make room for incoming students.

They sprawled the boxes and piles of their son's belong­ings on the sidewalk outside the dorm, searching through the jumbled mess for clues.

"We didn't know what he'd taken or what he was wear­ing. It didn't look like anything was missing. There were three or four pairs of gym shoes, five pairs of jeans, four pairs of khakis, book bags, knapsacks. His luggage was there. It looked like he didn't take anything at all," she says. "His books and notebooks were there, his computer."

Wayne and a Tech computer technician scoured the computer for clues, but all signs indicated that Joe had every intention of going home that day. At 6 a.m. Saturday, Joe had tried to access the AirTran Web site, but misspelled the name of the airline. He had visited the Greyhound Web site and sent the e-mails to his friends.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary at all. The last thing he looked at was the Greyhound site," Debbie says.

DiSabatino says students will often make plans without telling their parents or friends and cause them to worry, but, after speaking to the Morses, she felt Joe's case was different.

"Joe's family was expecting him. All of the things he said were very specific. He seemed to have planned out what he was doing for the summer," DiSabatino says. "But he also made it seem to those around him like he was keeping up with his schedule. He would leave like he was going to class and no one knows where he went off to. He kept up a fa­cade."

DiSabatino says students sometimes lose their grip on the situation when they start running into academic trouble at Tech. The embarrassment over not doing well turns into a fear of telling their parents that they are failing.

"They feel like their parents have always been proud of them and they work up these terrible scenarios in their heads about what would happen if they told their parents," DiSabatino says. "When we know a student is having trouble and we set up that meeting between parents and their student, it is hard and it is painful, but it is positive because the parents are generally very supportive of their child."

In Joe's case, the warning signs of trouble were not obvi­ous.

46 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 2001

"Joe's behavior seemed to fit the profile of someone who couldn't handle it. When I looked at his grades, I expected him to be flunking, but he was a good student. To just stop showing up didn't make sense. He was getting Cs and Bs at midterm, but maybe that wasn't good enough for him.

He was well-respected in the dorm, he had lots of interaction with other students, he was president of his dorm hall council, he was very active," DiSabatino says. "We've never had any situation go to this extreme. Some­

times when there is a problem with a student, the professors will go to their department head and then it will come to me, but this time that just didn't happen."

That first horrible, numbing week, the Morses scoured the campus, putting up posters of Joe, talking to every stu­dent they saw and going everywhere they could think of in search of some trace of their son.

Finally, on Wednesday, Debbie returned to Ohio to be with Allie, and Ben returned to school for final exams. Wayne stayed in Atlanta, going to places Joe had talked about going during the year, including Lenox Square Mall where the ATM camera had captured him taking the last of his money.

Wayne is also a runner. Every morning at dawn and every evening at dusk, he would run along the routes his

On Easter Sunday 2000, Joe (second from left) posed with his family: brother Ben, Debbie, Wayne and younger sister Allie.

son had talked about jogging, hoping to catch sight of his son's familiar gait.

On Friday, Wayne flew home and Debbie returned to Atlanta, where she was met by her mother-in-law, who flew up from Florida to help in the search.

Debbie stayed in Atlanta until May 16, the day summer classes began, in hopes that Joe would return for classes or that someone who knew him might see the posters and have some clue where he might have gone.

When she returned to Ohio, Debbie took off a week from her job as a nurse at the Children's Hospital outpatient center, while Wayne tried to return to the office, often stay­ing only a couple of hours a day.

"I sat here and jumped every time the phone rang," she says. "I went back to work and my friend told me I didn't have to be there. I said, 'What else am I going to do?'"

Meanwhile, Debbie's sister made two trips to Myrtle Beach, S.C., because it is just north of Garden City, a small town on the Atlantic coast where the family vacationed in the same house every year. She posted fliers and went into every storefront and showed Joe's photo.

"The police said to think of places where he had positive memories and look there. The kids loved that place. They had talked about buying that house together and Joe, at one

Summer 2001 • GEORGIA TECH 4 7

"She said, 'He's alive and you're going to hear from him. It's going to be a while, about a year. A

dark-haired woman helped him and he's in South America.' Then she went on to someone else."

point, had gotten on a satellite Web site that can find any point in the world and e-mailed a satellite picture of the house to Allie," Debbie says.

The Morses returned to Georgia Tech once more when fall, semester 2000 began, again posting fliers across campus, again questioning everyone they could about Joe.

Tech police, along with police in Atlanta and Cincinnati, and the FBI have found no trace of Joe, whose description remains on the National Crime Information Center network.

Although they can do little unless a person of Joe's de­scription is reported by the NCIC, Tech police say the case is a daily concern.

J"oe is never really far from our thoughts," says Geor­gia Tech chief of detectives Lt. Cecelya Taylor. "You remain hopeful and do what you have to do. Every one knows there are certain types of cases that remain open until you find the person and this is one of them.

You investigate any leads you have and that is all you can do."

Since the ATM withdrawal, there has been no activity on Joe's bank account, although the Morses have deposited more money in case he ever uses his bank card. There has been no activity on his e-mail and he has apparently not tried to use his Social Security number to get a job.

"You just kind of go about your business and everything reminds you — songs on the radio, television shows, mov­ies. Sometimes you get really engrossed in a project and you get away from it a little, but you don't need something to remind you," Debbie says.

"It's like you have a wound, open and raw, since then and it hasn't changed," Wayne says. "Every day you have that moment when you wonder where he is and if he's OK. It's the same feeling, non-stop."

The story is being considered for an episode of "Un­solved Mysteries," and Debbie has already appeared on an episode of "The Montel Williams Show" that featured psy­chic Sylvia Browne.

After seeing a show featuring the self-proclaimed psy­chic, Allie e-mailed the show relaying the family's story without her parents' knowledge.

In January, show representatives called and told Debbie of the e-mail. They requested a packet of information, which Debbie sent. She was chosen to appear on the show and flew alone to New York City for the Feb. 14 taping.

"I don't really believe in psychics, but it is something you are both afraid to do and afraid not to do," Debbie says. "But I knew they'd flash his picture up there and millions of people would see it."

The day of the taping, Debbie met several other families of missing people. Debbie listened, on edge, as Browne told each person that their loved one was dead. Browne finally got to Debbie near the end of the taping.

She listened as Browne described how depressed and despondent Joe had been.

"Finally, she said, 'He's alive and you're going to hear from him. It's going to be a while, about a year. A dark-haired woman helped him and he's in South America.' Then she went on to someone else," Debbie says.

She had to hold back tears when Browne said Joe was alive.

"We always tell ourselves that in our hearts we believe he's alive, but in part that is because we want to believe it and we haven't seen anything to show us otherwise," she says.

"Crises in people's lives affect relationships. You can let it get the best of you, or you can pull together and be strong," Debbie says, adding that she and Wayne support each other and rely on their abiding faith in God.

"Early on, during that first week, Wayne went to church before he drove back to Atlanta. One of the readings was the story of Abraham and Isaac. When Wayne got to At­lanta, he said, 'After eight hours in the car, I realized that God is not asking us to sacrifice our son. He's just asking us to trust in him and to trust in each other and to trust Joe,'" Debbie says. "You have to keep reminding yourself, and each other, of that and hopefully you don't both have down days at the same time."

Although they feel they understand what their son felt when he walked away from his life, Wayne and Debbie hope Joe realizes they miss him and want him home. Debbie still sends e-mails to Joe's account, hoping he will connect

and receive her messages of love from cyberspace. "We want him to know nothing is as important to us as

he is. He may think all kinds of things are a problem, but none of it is important," Debbie says.

"We want him to feel comfortable to call home, that whatever situation he finds himself in, he can call or come home," Wayne says. "Every day on the way home, you think, 'Maybe tonight.'"

"And every night when you go to bed," Debbie says, "you think, 'Maybe tomorrow.'" GT

Anyone with information that could be helpful in finding Joe Morse is asked to contact the Georgia Tech Police Department at 404-894-9966, or FBI Special Agent Neil Rabinovitz at 404-679-6237,

48 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 2001

family's two beloved pugs.