Woman asks public for help years after grandpa vanishes in Colorado Springs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A woman is asking for help from the public years after her grandfather who worked in Colorado Springs vanished.

Tuesday marks Missing Persons Day in Colorado. A ceremony scheduled at the Colorado Capitol at 10 a.m. will honor more than 600 people who have gone missing.

Among those missing is Francis Houle. Houle was last known to be working on a ranch in Colorado Springs and wrote a letter to his family dated August of 1979, but hasn't been heard from since. In 2021, Houle's grandaughter Samantha reported him missing, more than 30 years later.

"I don't think my family had the tools, and I don't think they could come to the conclusion that their dad actually went missing," Samantha Houle said about the delay in reporting her grandpa missing. "I think that was a hard time... I know that it's something that wounds my mom deeply to this day, thinking about her dad and how she hasn't seen him since she was a girl, seeing that hurt in my mom's eyes made me want to advocate for her."

Samantha has been doing her own research, exhausting every effort to track down what happened to her grandfather. If Francis is still alive, he would be turning 92 in May of this year, but Samantha added there's no record of a death certificate and she believes he wouldn't have chosen to lose contact with his family.

"He seemed like a very loving father," Samantha said. "He really loved his children. It is a feeling that you can see when you read his letters. I know he really missed being home in North Dakota, and I just hope that I can bring my mom and my relatives closure about their dad, but I need the community's help. I've pretty much exhausted every avenue I could go, so I need somebody out there to say something."

Samantha has a binder full of information she has collected on her grandpa.

"It's just kind of like he disappeared into thin air," Samantha added.

If you have any information on what happened to Francis, you're asked to email the Colorado Springs Police Department at CSPDColdCase@coloradosprings.gov.

Francis is just one of hundreds missing in the Centennial State. According to Colorado Bureau of Investigation Investigative (CBI) Analyst Audrey Simkins, there are about 680 missing persons cases they are tracking where someone has been missing more than a year, but on any given day in Colorado, there are about 1,200 missing person cases.

"It's more widespread than people would think," Simkins said of missing person cases. "If you see something and you don't want to intervene, that's totally fine, right? Things are dangerous out there these days, but making sure that if you see something, you say something. If it doesn't look right to you, if it doesn't sound right to you, get a hold of local law enforcement... and just be vigilant. Be aware of your surroundings. Watch your kiddos on their way to and from school and again, just if things don't look right, let someone know."

Simkins has been with the CBI for 26 years and wanted to make it clear there's a misconception that someone has to wait 24 hours to report a person missing when that isn't the case.

"As soon as you know that this person is missing, parent, child, senior citizen, adult, whatever the case may be, and you notice that break in that family cycle or that life cycle, that's when we want you to report," Simkins said. "It's critical, especially in missing person cases, because as soon as that report is obtained, that's when they can start doing some of that background information. Often times you know things that you can collect, like surveillance footage, cellphone data, some of those other things are sometimes only available for a short period of time."

You can view a list of missing people in Colorado below, the data was pulled from the CBI's Cold Case database under the category of "missing." You can also click here to view a listfrom the CBI that was published Feb. 4.

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