It was early 2020 and the Kansas City Chiefs were preparing to play their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
But Michael Montijo — a die-hard Chiefs fan — wouldn’t be there to see it.
The 55-year-old went missing from his Ridgeville, South Carolina, home on Sunday, January 26, 2020 — just one week before the big game.
Mike and his wife, April, had made plans to watch the big game the following Sunday. “He was looking forward to that game,” April told Dateline. “He was excited to see it.”
“He’s been a Kansas City Chiefs fan from the beginning of time,” sister Belinda Iglehart, told Dateline. “If you’re that big of a fan, you are not going to miss that for the world. So it just doesn’t make sense to me.”
April says nothing seemed out of the ordinary the morning Mike went missing. “The last time I saw him, he was in bed in his pajamas,” she said. “He was in the bedroom, laying there talking to me while I was getting dressed to go to work.”
April says she left to go to work around 8:00 a.m. She expected to see her husband when she got back home around 8:00 that night. “Normally, he is home,” April said. “His car was here and everything, so I thought he would be here at the house.”
He wasn’t.
“I said, ‘Well, maybe — OK, he maybe went outside and fell asleep and then he’ll be back,” April remembered thinking. So she went to bed.
April went to work on the 27th thinking Mike would be home when she got back. He was not. “When I got back the next day — that day — from work, that’s when I was like, ‘Wait, something is definitely wrong,’” she said.
April reported her husband missing on the afternoon of January 27, 2020, according to Colleton County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Laura Rutland. “He did leave behind his keys, wallet, cell phone, and chewing tobacco,” Rutland told Dateline. “His vehicle was still parked in the yard.”
Belinda Iglehart says her brother is notoriously fond and protective of his material items. “He was all about, you know, his possessions,” she told Dateline. “He wouldn’t have just walked off and left everything.” April Montijo agrees with her sister-in-law. “He was very, ‘This is my house, this is my animals,’” she told Dateline. “He wouldn’t just walk out and not take anything.”
April and Belinda both describe Mike as an alcoholic. According to April, her husband had been trying to stop drinking around the time he disappeared. “He had started his withdrawals,” she said. “I didn’t realize how bad he was when I left for work that day.”
Mike had also been experiencing hallucinations, April says, as a result of the withdrawal. She believes that when he went missing, Mike may have been delirious.
Belinda says the last time she spoke with her brother was Christmastime 2019, about a month before he disappeared. “He said he hadn’t been drinking,” Belinda recalled. “He said the last time was really bad -- that he’d tried to quit.” Belinda says Mike has had “issues with drinking before” that he had tried to overcome and had suffered seizures during withdrawal before.
According to PIO Rutland, workers from a nearby convenience store reported seeing Mike on the night of January 27 or in the early morning hours of the 28th — a day or two after he was last home. Police “spoke with employees there who said that Montijo was in the [store that] night purchasing tobacco and other items,” Rutland said. “They thought they saw him there getting into a gold Buick with another person.”
Rutland says officers tracked down the owner of the Buick, who “was interviewed and [said] he had never seen Michael Montijo in his life.” Rutland told Dateline the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office was unable to confirm that Mike was at the store that night. She noted there was another reported sighting of Mike around February 2020 which was also unable to be confirmed. There have been no reported sightings of Mike Montijo since.
“We’ve done a ground search, we’ve utilized K-9s,” Rutland said. “We’ve done a foot grid search, ATV search, UTV of the over 50 acres of property, including the area when it was flooded from recent rainfall.”
Mike’s family tried everything they could think of, as well. “My sister and her husband were, like, writing congresspeople — and my dad was, too. And they were calling everybody and, I mean, you know, trying to get any help with, you know, searching for him — or getting more attention brought to his case,” Belinda told Dateline. “We were met with dead ends everywhere.”
PIO Rutland says the Colleton County Sheriff’s office does not suspect Mike met with foul play. “His bank accounts and credit reports, to this day, remain untouched and inactive,” she said. Authorities also conducted interviews, including with Mike’s family. “Everyone they talked to has been very cooperative. No one seems to be deceptive in any way, and there doesn’t appear to be any suspicious circumstances surrounding his disappearance,” Rutland noted.
More than five years after Mike’s disappearance, April Montijo still believes her husband may be alive. “Everybody thinks I’m crazy — I still feel that he’s alive somewhere. I don’t have the feeling that he’s passed.”
Belinda Iglehart is not as optimistic about her brother’s fate. “My dad still thinks he’s alive. I, on the other hand, am more realistic and don’t think he is,” she said. “I haven’t given up hope, I just — not of finding him alive, of just finding something to lay to rest.” She is hopeful the family will be able to bring Mike home someday. “I would just like some closure,” she said.
“I just want to know what happened and get closure on it,” April said, echoing her sister-in-law. “I still come across things every day that I would talk to him about or have him do. It’s hard.”
Mike’s disappearance is an open investigation. “We would love to bring Michael Montijo back home to his family,” PIO Rutland told Dateline. “And we ask that, you know, anybody with any information — no matter how small they think it is — to please contact us and give us the chance to try to follow up on it and bring some answers to the family, because they deserve answers.”
Mike is 5’5” and weighs about 165 lbs. He has salt and pepper hair and brown eyes. He has several tattoos: the letters “mm” on his left knuckles, a panther on his left forearm, a rose on his left upper arm, an eagle on his right upper arm and a Harley Davidson logo on his right forearm.
Anyone with information about Michael Montijo’s disappearance is asked to call the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office at 843-549-2211. You may also submit anonymous tips through their website.
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