When Nikki Bagby’s father went missing

On the night of Jan. 15, William Bagby enjoyed the birthday dinner his family organized for his 73-year-old wife, Faye. And the high-energy couple were even thinking about going to Atlantic City the next day.

But first, they returned happy but weary to their temporary apartment on the 6900 block of Germantown Avenue, where they had been staying for the last six months while their fire-damaged home on the 1900 block of Rowan Street in Nicetown was being renovated.

“They came in really tired and laid down and went to bed around 10 p.m. and went to sleep,” Nikki Bagby remembered.

Then, sometime in the quiet of the night, with Faye sound asleep, William Bagby awoke, put on his thermal underwear and a thick hoodie and, according to the apartment’s hallway surveillance camera, got on the elevator at 2:19 a.m.. Fifteen minutes later, the parking lot camera picked him up outside, alone in the frigid dark.

Then he disappeared.

William Bagby, a month shy of his 75th birthday, was a strong, lively man who loved to dance and to walk. But for a while the family had suspected he was suffering from a neurocognitive problem. They hadn’t gotten him tested, but there were some signs — like forgetting the details of major family historical events.

The Bagby family didn’t think it was an urgent problem. Nothing drastic had happened to him. It was just something the close-knit family needed to keep an eye on.

Every three seconds, someone in the world develops dementia. According to the Penn Memory Center, about 54% of Americans experiencing thinking and memory problems have not consulted with their doctor.

Pennsylvania has one of the nation’s highest percentage of elderly residents. According to the state Department of Aging, more than 400,000 people are living with Alzheimer’s disease or a related disorder (ADRD), and that number is expected to grow as the baby boomer generation continues aging. About 5% of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74, and about one-third of those over 85, have some form of dementia. Up to 60% of them will wander away during the course of their disease and half of them will face harm or death.

An hour after William Bagby slipped out of the apartment, Faye Bagby awakened. She thought her husband of 55 years was in the bathroom. Then she checked the hallway and saw his slippers neatly placed near the elevator. That’s when she panicked.

“I was on edge thinking it was all my fault. On the inside it was eating me up,” she said.

First Faye Bagby called her family. Then she called the police. And finally she prayed: “Oh, please, just help him. It’s cold out there.”

Nikki Bagby was asleep when Faye Bagby’s call came.

William Bagby is technically her father-in-law but they have always had an affectionate father-daughter bond. Because their grandchildren were at the house visiting, her husband didn’t awaken her. He figured that his father would be nearby and it wouldn’t take long to swoop him up and return him home.

Family members fanned out and started looking. They sent Faye Bagby back into the house in case her husband came home. Usually, individuals with ADRD are found within 1.5 miles of where they disappeared.

By the time the 14th District police officers arrived, Faye Bagby was anxious and confused. She didn’t think to mention that her husband was suffering from dementia-like symptoms. It was an oversight that would come to haunt the family.

According to AARP, “It’s essential that the missing person be classified as ‘missing and at risk,’ as opposed to just ‘missing,’ in order for the police to immediately put resources into finding the person.”

The missing person’s report simply said “William is 74 years old, 5′5,″ 150 lbs., thin build, brown eyes, gray hair and was last seen wearing a black wool hat, gray hoodie, black pants and black/white sneakers.”

The Police Department didn’t list him as endangered.

“They treated it like a man who just got up and left and would return later,” Nikki Bagby said.

More than 600,000 people go missing each year in the United States according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUS) database, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. Most are found quickly.

At 8:41 p.m., about 18 hours after William Bagby was last seen, a frustrated Nikki Bagby turned for help to sites such as Missing in Philly, a Facebook group with almost 13,000 members, which has post after post of desperate families looking for missing love ones.

Later, the family would discover that after William Bagby left his apartment, he walked about 20 blocks down Germantown Avenue, coming near to his home in Nicetown.

Then at 5:18 a.m. he boarded a bus, swiped his SEPTA Key card, and spent the next 12 hours riding buses from Nicetown to Montgomery County to Center City.

“From 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. at night, he took 12 different bus rides,” Nikki Bagby said.

“People started [messaging] me, ‘I think I saw him on the bus,’” Nikki Bagby said of her social media posts.

Hundreds of people probably saw him that first day. But without publicity, no one except close family members knew William Bagby was missing.

William Bagby was a retired SEPTA bus driver and that’s what gave Nikki Bagby the thought that he would use his SEPTA Key card. So she spent the day trying to get SEPTA Key information from his swipes.

According to a SEPTA spokesman, that information is available from the SEPTA Transit Police, but only for valid law enforcement-related incidents such as a missing person.

But SEPTA Transit Police told Nikki Bagby that they couldn’t generate that information in real time. It would require 24 hours to complete a report.

William Bagby had been missing for more than a day. Research has shown that 46% of wanderers are found dead after 24 hours; 80% after 72 hours. Sick with worry, Nikki Bagby hounded the Philadelphia Police Department to prepare a flier and put it on their missing persons website. She complained that the 14th District and the Northwest Detectives bounced her calls around and believed that the Police Department wasn’t treating the situation with the urgency the family felt.

And the family had run out of places to look for William Bagby.

“Late on the 17th, I went to the SEPTA Transit police office at the [Arrott Transportation Station] at 2 in the morning and gave them 500 fliers,” Nikki Bagby said. The thought was SEPTA drivers would have his picture and be on the lookout. “We stayed out in the street until 6 in the morning.”

Faye Bagby said what happened next could be explained only by all the prayers that went forth.

Nikki Bagby’s sister, Eboni Smith, is a supplier diversity specialist at Amtrak who usually works remotely. This day, unwilling to sit at home, she grabbed a handful of fliers, went out to 30th Street Station, and before heading to her office decided to drop some off at the Amtrak Police office.

At the same time, an Amtrak officer had learned of an unidentified elderly John Doe who had been found on the 30th Street ramp, his feet dangling over the rail.

“It was my father-in-law,” Nikki Bagby said. “[He was] exhausted and he had to be stripped and put in a thermos bag [because of low body temperature]. His sugar was low, he has high blood pressure.

“It was only by grace that we found him and it was 20-something degrees out there,” she said, her relief mixed with frustration.

One of the common causes of death among people with ADRD who wander is accidental hypothermia. At Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, the emergency room doctor told Nikki Bagby that her father-in-law was only a few hours from dying.

Physically, William Bagby survived.

“He sailed through rehab,” Nikki Bagby said, “But he isn’t the same man.” Wandering is often a sign of dementia progressing.

“The dementia is undeniable now and he has needs. He has Apple tags.” Bagby was referring to Apple’s AirTags, the button-size Bluetooth trackers that provide real-time location tracking.

And Nikki Bagby has become another Philadelphian who wants the city to do better by its missing, especially those with neurological challenges.

“The Philadelphia Police Department doesn’t have standard questions and written information for the family on what to do and what to expect next. There are so many holes” in the missing-persons system, she said.

“I don’t want to be learning when a family member is missing.”