Family’s Xmas Appeal To AWOL Sailor
The last thing a US Navy serviceman who went missing en route to his Bermuda post told his mother was he’d be home for Christmas.
It’s too late for this year but his Georgia family hope Alan Lee Morse [pictured] will finally be reunited with them for the holiday season in 2012.
George Morse told the “Atlanta Journal-Constitution” his son left home from US Navy leave in October, 1989 and never returned to his base in Bermuda. He hasn’t been seen since.
Alan Lee Morse has been Absent Without Leave for 22 years now.
In 1989 the one-time air traffic controller at the old US Naval Air Station in Bermuda bid his family farewell to return back to duty.
Days later, a superior called Mr. Morse’s father from Bermuda asking where he was.
The elder Mr. Morse went to police, “but they said it’s not illegal for an adult to go missing.” He did not file a police report.
Five years ago, the Navy called, telling George Morse they would not press charges of having gone AWOL against his son. The elder Mr. Morse hired a private eye trying to track down his son.
He found that his son had visited a friend after leaving his family in 1989. That friend said he took Alan to a bus station. That was his last sighting.
George Morse hopes his son is alive and hiding, still believing he is a fugitive.
“I’d be delighted to find out he’s alive,” said his father. “But I’d be relieved to find out whatever. It’s a heart-breaking story. He’d be a 42-year-old now. He’s been missing longer than he was with us.”
Anyone in Bermuda who might have information about Alan Lee Morse’s current whereabouts is urged to contact Georgia authorities.
Official Alan Lee Morse Missing Person Report
Date Of Birth: January 21, 1970
Age at Time of Disappearance: 19 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 6′ 2″; 155 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: White male. Brown hair; brown eyes.
Marks, Scars: None
Fingerprint: Available
Dentals: Available
Circumstances of DisappearanceMorse was last seen in Austell, Georgia in October 1989.
At the time of his disappearance Alan Lee Morse was an Air Traffic Controller for the US Navy stationed at Naval Air Station in Bermuda.
Morse came home to Cobb County, Georgia on leave in October 1989 and at the end of his leave period was to have returned to Bermuda. At the end of his leave Morse told his mother he would see her at Christmas and left. That night someone from the NAS in Bermuda called Morse’s father looking for Morse.
It was soon learned that Morse had told his mother that his father would take him to the airport for the return trip and told his father that his mother would take him. Based on this inconsistency, the assumption was made that Morse had gone AWOL.
Early efforts to list Alan as missing met with reluctance since there was no apparent evidence of foul play.
Alan’s disappearance and subsequent lack of contact with family is completely out of character for Alan in that he enjoyed an unusually close relationship with other family members. A missing person report was taken in 2007.
The US Navy has advised Alan’s family that they will not prosecute Alan for being AWOL.
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Cobb County Police Department
Detective David Mulkey
770-499-3900
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