EVERETT, Wash. — It’s been one year since a Mukilteo man went missing, and detectives and his family are pleading with the public to come forward with any information about what happened.
Marni Pierce loves talking about her sweet, kind-hearted son, Jacob Hilkin; she just wishes she didn’t have to do it in the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office—but she needs your help to find him.
So that is where we met with her on Thursday.
“I would beg every single person to think about what it would be like if the closest person in their life vanished one day and you had no answers. What would you do?” Pierce asked.
On Jan. 22, 2018, 24-year-old Jacob Hilkin came to his mother’s house for dinner. Before she went to bed: “he came over, kissed me on the cheek and said ‘Goodnight, Mom, I love you,’” Piercei told us.
That was the last time she ever saw him.
Later, Pierce learned Hilkin went with friends to the Tulalip casino but left before them. At 10:20 a.m. Jan. 23, police patrolling the area around the casino had a quick conversation with him.
“He was in a camp located behind Quil Ceda Village, and I believe he was in a group, and police just kind of informed them all that they needed to go ahead and move along,” Courtney O’Keefe, with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, said.
Police say Hilkin went off by himself southbound on 27th Avenue Northeast.
One hundred search and rescue volunteers searched 700 acres of land in an attempt to locate Hilkin, and detectives fielded dozens of calls.
“Unfortunately, many of the possible sightings did not turn out to be Jacob,” O’Keefe explained.
So once again, on the first anniversary of her son's disappearance, Pierce is asking you to keep looking.
“I miss him dearly, and as hard as it is to know the outcome is not likely positive of him coming home, I want to give him that peace. I want to give my family that peace, and I need that peace, I want to get closure.”
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