This week’s featured missing person is Ellis Faison Sr., who disappeared from rural Kenansville, North Carolina on August 9, 1989.
Faison was an alcoholic and I wonder if he was suffering from the DT’s when he went missing. Obviously there was SOMETHING seriously amiss: he was hallucinating, having long conversations with dead relatives, etc. Twice he summoned the cops to come and look inside his car because he thought there were people sitting in it. (There weren’t.) He left home without his shoes, something his family says he would have never done, and a neighbor saw him running through her own yard, yelling and apparently terrified.
Under the circumstances I’m surprised Faison’s wife or the police didn’t think to take him to the hospital. Perhaps he didn’t want to go.
In any case, he’s been missing for nearly thirty years. My guess is that he died on the night of his disappearance or shortly thereafter and his body is still in the local area.
The Charley Project Blog 
Uhhh — the possible escaped convict is a weird twist to the story. I wonder if he had some dementia or sundowners along with the alcoholism. It seems if he died of natural causes in the area that night or soon after, his body would have been located. I hope his family finds him!
The county Faison disappeared from is noted for its pig farms and has a bigger hog population than most entire states. It’s gruesome to think about but I wonder if maybe the reason his body was never found is because pigs ate it.
He’s listed in the SSDI as having died on the same day he went missing. But it lists his date of birth as June 11, 1925.
I can’t imagine how painful it must be to request that a missing family member be declared legally dead.
As a member of the medical field, I don’t think he was suffering from DT’s. People suffer from DT’s if they’re withdrawing from alcohol. His mug of whiskey shows he had alcohol available to him so I’m guessing he was drinking it. His symptoms sound more in line with cirrhosis of the liver caused by alcoholism. The liver is failing and is unable to filter out ammonia which then builds up in the brain. Higher levels of ammonia can cause confusion and hallucinations. Unfortunately, I have seen this occur many times.
Thanks for your insights.