Family of Matthew McDonald hosts vigil 1 year after his disappearance
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - One year ago Saturday, Matthew McDonald of Washington County disappeared on the side of the road and has been missing ever since.
His family and loved ones held a vigil on Saturday night to remember him.
Imagine being dropped off and left to fend for yourself. That was the last time anyone saw Matthew McDonald.
So many unanswered questions. The McDonald family has been waiting and searching for a year for Matthew McDonald: A son, grandson and father.
McDonald was left to his own devices without a phone and with only the shirt on his back on a country road close to the Monongahela River.
"We're looking for justice. It's officially a year ago today since, [and] there has been no trace of him whatsoever, no sightings no contact no nothing," one cousin said.
There have not been many leads to finding where Matthew might be, however, his family and friends came out to the location where he was last seen to remember him with a vigil.
"I wake up every morning and realize it wasn't a dream. I'm still living a nightmare, and I go through the day the best I can and wake up and do it again the next day," Matthew's mother, Beth Engle Roth, said.
Many wore pink, his favorite color. His mother and grandmother want to know what happened to him.
"We always said, 'I love you more,' I said it and he said it, and that was the last," grandmother Debbie Baker said.
Candles were lit in the rain where a prayer was said and a plea for police and the community to continue looking for Matthew.
"He was trying his best, he could have got into the wrong people and they could have pointed him in the wrong direction, but still he doesn't deserve what happened to him if it did."
Matthew is described as 6-foot-1 and weighs 185 pounds, with brown hair, and brown eyes, and has a tattoo of praying hands on his right arm.
His family refuses to give up hope.
"Please end this misery for all of us; we can't keep doing this. We need some normalcy back into our lives, Matthew, if you are out there, just come home, just come home," Engle Roth said.
If you have any information on where Matthew might be, please call the police.