“He wouldn’t miss Thanksgiving dinner,” Susan Baldwin told Dateline about her brother, 57-year-old Kevin Hornburg. “If he was invited to one, he would be there. And he’d take home half a pie.”
On Wednesday, November 24, 2021 — the night before Thanksgiving — Susan says she received a call from her brother Bobby Hornburg, who told her that no one had seen Kevin since Sunday, November 21. “Bobby thought maybe I had come out to Jamestown and got him,” she said.
According to Susan, for the prior few months, Bobby had been living in Kevin’s Jamestown, New York, apartment. She also said that Michael Brown, a family friend, had been staying at the apartment for about a month. Susan told Dateline that Brown was the last person to see Kevin around 4 p.m. that day.
“Mike Brown said that Kevin just stepped off the porch and never came back,” she said, adding that he told her Kevin left the apartment to look for spare wood he needed to fix somebody’s window. “It would be likely that Kevin would do that,” Susan said.
Dateline attempted to contact Brown but was unable to do so.
It was snowing when Bobby called Susan that Wednesday night. “‘I can’t go driving in the dark in a snowstorm. It’s snowing out, it’s dark — and I’ll come look for Kevin tomorrow,’” she recalls saying to her brother. “I didn’t know it would be urgent and figured Kevin would probably show back up.”
Kevin is one of six siblings and has a daughter of his own. Susan says it was extremely unlike him to disappear without alerting anyone. “He loves family,” she said. “He loves being with us.”
Susan says she made the 25-minute drive from her home to Jamestown on Thanksgiving morning to help look for Kevin. The family reported him missing later that day.
Kevin’s family continued to search for him on their own over the next few days. According to Susan, she and a few other family members searched abandoned buildings in the Jamestown area. “I didn’t know what to do,” Susan said. “I had no idea how to look for him or anything.”
About a week and a half into the search for Kevin, Susan received a call from Merry Williams, founder of an organization called WNY Missing & Unidentified Persons that helps search for missing people in Western New York. “Merry called and said, ‘Would you like some help?’ I said, ‘Of course I would,’” Susan told Dateline. “So then she got her whole group together.”
Merry has continued to lead community-organized searches for Kevin since December 2021. “It’s my honor & privilege to help Kevin’s family. They’ve become much like an extended family,” she wrote to Dateline in an email. “I promised them until he’s located we’ll continue efforts. & I intend to keep that promise in any capacity I can.”
According to Susan, the Jamestown Police Department also organized their own searches.
In January 2022 — about two months after Kevin went missing — the Jamestown Police Department posted about his disappearance on Facebook. “Kevin A. Hornburg was last seen leaving his residence at 629 Prendergast Ave. in Jamestown on Sunday November 21, 2021 at about 4:00 pm,” the post read. “Hornburg has not been seen or accessed any of his finances since that date.”
The department added that the investigation was “ongoing and foul play is believed to have been involved.” Susan told Dateline the family also strongly believes there was foul play in Kevin’s disappearance.
Dateline reached out multiple times to the Jamestown Police Department to speak with an officer familiar with Kevin’s case but has yet to hear back.
Susan described Kevin as physically vulnerable, saying he had been in a coma about three months prior to his disappearance. “I do not know what caused the coma,” she told Dateline. “I do know that, at that time, in August, he was sleeping for 10 days.” She said she tried to take care of her brother after he was discharged from the hospital. “I tried to get him to come back to my house,” she told Dateline. Ultimately, Kevin decided to go back to his own apartment instead.
Kevin was still weak three months later. “He used a cane because his legs had, you know, gotten real swollen when he was in his coma,” Susan said. “So they hurt a lot.”
A lot has happened in the family in the three years since Kevin disappeared.
About a year ago, the Hornburg siblings suffered the loss of their brother Danny. This year, Kevin’s daughter got married and he became the grandfather of two.
Susan says she and the rest of the family have little hope that Kevin is alive, but have not given up on trying to find him. “Closure would be nice,” Susan said. “We would like to have at least some of his body returned to us so that we could, you know, put him away.”
According to the 2022 Facebook post by the Jamestown Police Department, a reward of up to $2,500 is being offered by Crime Stoppers WNY “for information leading to the arrest or indictment of the person(s) responsible for the disappearance and/or homicide of Kevin Hornburg.”
Kevin would be 60 years old today. He is 5’8’’ and weighs approximately 150 lbs. He has brown eyes and, at the time of his disappearance, brown hair. According to his sister, he has a tattoo of a cross on his left forearm and an unknown tattoo between his left pointer finger and thumb.
Anyone with information is asked to the Jamestown Police Department at 716-483-7537. Anonymous tips can also be left at the department’s Anonymous Tip Line at 716 483-TIPS (8477).
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