An Oklahoma man has been missing for over 25 years after going missing shortly after ‘an unknown man’ showed up asking ‘about a horse’.
On March 14, 1998 at around 9:00am, Leonard Dirickson was having breakfast with his 16-year-old son at their home in Strong City, Oklahoma when a strange man arrived at their front door.
The day of Leonardo Dirickson’s disappearance
The man came to ‘inquire about a horse‘ Dirickson ‘had for sale,’ Oklahoma Cold Cases reports in a post to Facebook.
“Dirickson told his son that he was going to take the man to Elk City, Oklahoma and then on to Mobeetie, Texas to look at horses,” the post continues. “Leonard was never heard from again.”
NamUs’ Missing Persons site confirms that 39-year-old Dirickson was last seen by his son at the farm, wearing ‘a brown ballcap with a green bill with ACCO Feeds logo faded black Carharrt coat with a hood, green jeans’ alongside ‘black/brown leather tennis shoes or hiking boots’.
He was seen by his son getting into ‘a white 1994 Ford F-150 single cap pickup’ with ‘an unknown male driver’ with plans to travel to Mobeetie, just north of Elk City to ‘look at the horse’.
The vehicle is reported as possibly having ‘New Mexico plates with a yellow tag on the front of the pickup’.
Dirickson is said to have ‘told his son he would be back after lunch‘ but he didn’t return and the two potential sightings which followed have been branded as up ‘in the air’.
Oklahoma Cold Case’s reports that a waitress who worked ‘a few miles’ from Dirickson’s house came forward claiming to have ‘seen him within a few hours’ after he was seen leaving home by his son.
The waitress further claimed that she saw Dirickson and the unknown man ‘eating breakfast’ and even provided a description to authorities, which led to a sketch of the unknown man being created by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, but the sighting’s credibility was questioned as his family were ‘absolutely adamant that he wouldn’t eat breakfast twice’.
The second sighting reportedly occurred ‘six months’ after Dirickson was last seen by his son and consisted of a man in a bar in Amarillo, Texas, claiming to ‘have seen and talked’ to him.
However, ‘when police arrived neither the caller nor Leonard were at the bar’.
The report resolves: “There is no evidence that Leonard ever actually arrived at his barn where his horse he had for sale was kept.”
Dirickson – who would be 66 years old today – subsequently remains ‘missing’, according to NamUs’ Missing Persons site.
His son, Jared, previously said: “I love him a lot. I wish I could see him again. I pray to God he will let me see him again.”
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Leonard Dirickson, please contact the Roger Mills County Sheriff’s Office at (580) 497-2417
UNILAD has contacted the Roger Mills County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
