That was mercifully quick: 22-year-old Evan Flanary has been found. Flanary went missing June 19 in San Francisco after meeting a person on a hookup app, causing his frantic mother Deborah Berlingeri to start a manhunt that quickly spread across the gay Internet.
So, what happened to the blond-haired, blue-eyed, boy out in the big bad, scary world? What was the sordid fate of the young son who met a “stranger” and then suddenly vanished?
He was just out partying and didn’t think to contact mom.
Berlingeri posted about her son’s return on her Facebook:
How about we take this to the next level?
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He was SO SO SO apologetic that he worried about us. He had met a person, they hit it off fabulously, they were down town enjoying all the week’s festivities. The battery in his cell phone died and although he had a charger, it just wouldn’t take the charge. He never noticed the flyers but today he saw his image on a television screen and could NOT believe it. He called me just minutes before the KNTV interview was scheduled to begin, so instead of crying I was grinning like the village idiot!! I love that boy. My dear friend Torsten Hirche is with him as we speak. Love you man! Yay, now I can breathe!
Although Berlingeri remains non-gender specific in her wording, San Fran’s main festivity was Gay Pride so we have the slightest suspicion there’s a queer angle here. We also think there’s more to this story than what mom posted, but at least it has a happy ending, right?
On a related note, the site that Berlingeri created to find her son, HelpFindEvan.com, now has this curious message:
Good news. Evan has been found safe. Praise the Lord and pass the GPS!
This website is for sale. If you have a wayward child called Evan, or you’ve simply left someone called Evan in the toy department of a crowded store…
have we got a deal for you!
Gary Indianna
I suspect his mother isn’t handling his coming out that well…
Macmantoo
Sounds like he was getting laid all week. You go boy. I wouldn’t mind a piece either.
Spike
Just a little to over protective Mother, the guy is 22, not 16.
Mark
The message on that website is crass. “We have to make a little money off this” ??
Cam
Interesting that he seems to be out and yet the mother is trying to play the closet game. Maybe that is why he wanted to get outta there for a week.
Brian Miller
You guys are all retards for suggesting that his mother has a problem with his being gay! Reading in between the lines to validate your own need to feel slighted is simply stupid! She’s not over protective, she is smart and on top of her parenting game! Since no one knows what the “deal” with the website is, we should nto be accusing her of trying to profit off her own fright! Grow up, people!
Daez
@Gary Indianna: Sounds to me like she is handling it fabulously. The moment I cam out to my mom, she called every single person she could think of to tell them I was gay. This robbed me of a chance to tell other people myself. I was PISSED! It is actually a good thing that this mother has not decided to tell everyone possible that her son is (possibly) gay.
On the other hand, he could be straight…PLENTY of straight couples enjoy PRIDE celebrations.
Daez
@Spike: He also still lives at home and did not come home for almost a week. That is not being overprotective. It is being sensible. You obviously do not have children.
UsualPlayers
I would imagine that any parent for the record if there kid terms of missing for days would be worried. Gay or straight.
Therefore, I am going to ignore the normal crazy factor here.
Its interesting how the comments were diferent when people thought him missing, which suggests to me that you realize that there’s a danger involved in what he was doing, but you immediately (a la Cam) go back to circling the wagons about being protective of anything you imagine is a sleight to being gay (which pointing out the danger of what he did is not doing)
There’s a differernce between having fun and not letting anyone know where you are to the point that you are missing
This could have ended differently and has for others in the past- including one kid here in nyc a year ago
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Daez:
What Daez said.
A lot of parents don’t give a fuck about their kids. This mother hadn’t heard from her son and did what she could to make sure he was ok. The boy needs a good firm smack upside the head for not contacting his parents. His cell wouldn’t take a charge? Then pick up a landline–they do still exist.
R
I think his mother handled it great. You can tell by her wording that they know that he’s gay, but for the sake of publicity she’s being neutral. And why wouldn’t she, she obviously loves her son very much. For some reason, it feels like it was the best way to handle it. Should it have said that he was gay, it would likely have shown up as a different news in specific channels and groups. Giving haters a chance to call social apps ‘predator tools’ and what not. Instead, she calls him for what he is, her 22-year old son.
I’m glad that he’s safe, a shame about that charger, though! It wouldn’t have come this far if he had made one phone call. Honestly, even though he’s 22 she still had reason to be worried. If you send your friend to town on a tuesday evening, knowing he or she is going on a date, wouldn’t you be worried if he or she hadn’t shown any sign of life for a week?
Still amazed how well she handled it. She sounds so down to earth.
Cam
@Brian Miller: said…
“You guys are all retards for suggesting that his mother has a problem with his being gay! Reading in between the lines to validate your own need to feel slighted is simply stupid!”
____________________
Really? Are we all being “RETARDS”? Well and you’re being a childish person with a 4th grade vocabulary.
He is 22 and out, and yet in her search to find him, she wouldn’t even announce the sex of the person he was supposedly going to meet. Sorry but when you are hiding facts like that at the same time you are begging people to help you find a child, that does show that there she is not comfortable.
iDavid
Cam
Or she didn’t feel comfortable speaking her son’s sexual orientation publically w/o his approval in a world where kids are being beaten and committing suicide. I’m not the mom so can’t say for sure, but it could very well be a healthy set of boundaries on the mother’s part to respect her son’s sexual privacy. Could this be the discomfort you are intuiting, a mom scared for her son’s life in a horrendously dangerous culture war?
Daez
@Cam: There is a HUGE difference between being out to your family and friends and possibly co-workers and coming out to 270+ million people. Once something is online it is free for everyone to see. That list includes future employers and everyone else that could possibly affect your life in any way. It is a personal decision to make not one that your mother should make for you.
Daez
@iDavid: I think it helps Cam to fantasize about this kid who is young enough to be his grandchild if he knows for sure that he is gay, and Cam is pissed that he does not for sure know that because it was not put out there for him to see.
Cam
Yes, I get what you are both saying….
HOWEVER, when you feel that a young man may have been kidnapped and murdered, you don’t play cagey with the information.
Daez
@Cam: How exactly does his sexuality have anything to add to the discussion. It really does not make any difference at all. If a straight person goes missing they investigate it the same way they would when a gay person goes missing.
mc
Glad it turned out well. He was missing for several days so it wasn’t unreasonable for the mother to fear the worse.
Per her facebook pages that find evan website was not created by her. In fact they were looking for the person who paid for the domain site at one point per her posting: “In all the activity I have lost the name of the person who designed the site http://www.helpfindevan.com. I need him/her to come forward so we can change and update the contents ASAP. Thank you!!”
Also, I guess we’re assuming he’s gay/out even though that’s not clearly stated. She did request flyers get passed out at Pride though & per what Queerty posted said “…they were down town enjoying all the week’s festivities.” Maybe like others have stated, she was just being careful. Her notes indicate she was in contact with the police & trying to get info from the social app so she was probably not hiding vital information from them.
QJ201
Sounds like somebody had a tweaker weekend
UsualPlayers
By the way, the kid sounds deeply irresponsible
Spike
@Daez: Missed that he lives a home. So he’s a 22 year old looser, and not very bright if he is going to go on a week long tweaker binge without first telling his landlord parents that he’s headed out of town, ‘with friends.’ Dumb ass. And no, I don’t have kids nor do I want kids, and if I had kids, they would be a lot smarter then this kid.
Sean
This kid can’t BORROW someone’s phone?
Sean
This kid can’t BORROW someone’s phone and make a call?
michael
As usual, we have the bitchy Queerty readers making catty, lame comments. As for his mom not sharing the gender of his hook up, I hage 5 simple letters for you:
N
O
Y
F
B
Cam
@Daez: said…
“@Cam: How exactly does his sexuality have anything to add to the discussion. It really does not make any difference at all. If a straight person goes missing they investigate it the same way they would when a gay person goes missing.”
_____________-
I get that you like to play devil’s advocate, however, when you are seeking a missing person and sending out pleas to find him, you don’t get cagey about facts. She wouldn’t specify that the person he was going to meet and was, if he had been harmed, the last person to see him, was male.
That is a major piece of information that she somehow felt uncomfortable stating. When somebody is reported missing they don’t say “they were last seen with…a person” They say “They were last seen with a female, blonde, between 25 and 35” or something like that. When I first read the situation it stood out as weird that the mother wouldn’t hand out even the info about the gender of the person who her child may have been going to meet.
If you are still keeping him in the closet when you think he may have been kidnapped, that says something.
Cam
@michael: said…
As usual, we have the bitchy Queerty readers making catty, lame comments. As for his mom not sharing the gender of his hook up, I hage 5 simple letters for you:
N
O
Y
F
B
This is what I LOVE…this woman plasters this all over social media and the news, but it is somehow none of our business. Funny, if it was none of our business, then I guess she shouldn’t have begged us to make it our business.
When you are reporting a possible kidnapping, if you have information on the car model and color the possible kidnapper was driving you don’t say “and they were seen getting into a vehicle with four wheels.”
The fact that YOU think this information is somehow a shameful dirty secret says some pretty sad things about you.
Codswallop
What’s the deal with complaining about what the mother said about selling the website?
“This website is for sale. If you have a wayward child called Evan, or you’ve simply left someone called Evan in the toy department of a crowded store… have we got a deal for you!”
Dudes, that’s a JOKE! For Christ’s sake pull those wadded up panties outta your ass because they’re making you cranky!
I’m just glad he turned up OK because, believe me, that was NOT a foregone conclusion. Yes he was irresponsible and should have contacted his friends and family, but that’s a far better outcome than being found dead in a ditch somewhere. Use your brains when hooking up because there ARE some very sick people out there. Don’t think just with your dick!
mc
@Codswallop: There’s every indication the mother didn’t create that site so maybe Queerty needed to check that before posting that info here. She was asking for the person who set it up to contact her to update & she didn’t know if it was a he or a she. One of the people posting even thought it was set up by someone in Australia.
B
In No. 21 · Spike wrote, “@Daez: Missed that he lives a home. [inappropriate comments about Mr. Flanary ignored]”.
Well, it looks like the San Francisco Chronicle missed that too. According to http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-man-reported-missing-is-found-safe-3663621.php “Flanary arrived in San Francisco four months ago from his native Medford, Ore., where his parents still live.”
Don’t blame him, and I can sympathize. Once, while in my mid twenties, I went on a week long trip – basically a vacation – and mentioned to my parents, who lived on the opposite coast, before I left that I would be out of town for a few days (wasn’t sure how long I was staying). When I got home, I got woken up the next morning by a 6 AM phone call with my mother sounding completely panicked. I thought something terrible had happened like a fatal car accident. It turns out she was worried because nobody answered the phone when she called and completely overreacted.
emma
Im happy the kid’s okay, and he was found before various religious right types could start in on their “dangerous lifestyle” screeds. now everyone go call your mom’s…she worries, you know!
Mk Ultra
My mom is exactly the same way.
Hearing stories of gays being beaten, robbed, killed, or worse, ending up a victim of some psycho like Magnotta makes me glad she is.
Sozo
I am just glad he is okay and who knows, maybe he was the one who wanted to DL this part of his life but thanks to mom – you outta the closet baby. Enjoy.
George
Why the hell does everyone keep calling this guy a “Kid” he is F**ing 22 Years old!!! He is an adult, if he wants to stay out for 6 months with out telling mommie who the hell cares!
Chris-MI
It’s not really that hard to figure out. Something was going on and there was some sort of crisis but now he’s known to be safe and they’re working it out. They don’t want to tell us exactly what it was.
When someone goes out on a hookup and doesn’t come home or contact his family or roommates for five days it is reasonable to contact the police. There was some reason he didn’t contact his family and it was a bad thing, but the family is being coy about it. Exactly what was wrong or even whether he lived at home is not really a public issue now.
Ernst
Baggy, pleated slacks? Are we sure he’s gay?
Ernst
@George: His mommy does, clearly. Besides, they live together. What kind of a monster of a mother wouldn’t worry if her son left the house and didn’t come back and didn’t contact her?
Some Random Guy
These comments are hilarious!
Knew the L.A./ Palm Springs Scenes, too
This woman just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She goes from being either a genuinely distraught mother or theatrical mother to a mother that seems to be bragging to her friends about a “fabulous match” that her son just made. Forget the strange relationship–or not–that she has with her son; she seems to disregard all the hysteria and hoopla that she created and, instead, cheekily defends all of his actions, offhandedly absolves all of her actions and then offers to sell his website to the highest bidder. All of this with very odd “Love you Man!” call-out to either her friend or to her son (I’m not sure). She has the hubris to not even thank or remember the media and its resources that came to her aid. It’s like she turned on her heel and went back home to polish her fingernails, simple as that. I can’t remember having this bad feeling from any other similar missing person story.
Hank
@Spike: How is he a loser for living at home? With the economy being what it is, lots of college kids live at home. That doesn’t make them losers.
B
No. 39 · Hank wrote, “@Spike: How is he a loser for living at home? With the economy being what it is, lots of college kids live at home. That doesn’t make them losers.”
Guys … he’s not living at home. See the link in No. 29. He lives in San Francisco and his parents live in Oregon. What he was doing, if anything, is none of our business.
Ernst
@B: Ah. I, for one, stand corrected.
UsualPlayer
The comments are funny because normal human reactions are not supposed to happen when one is trying to defend the irresponsible.
I am glad he didn’t get hurt.
However, Cam and the other crazies who posts in these sort of threads arguing that his actions are right- clearly have no sense of common sense.
Let’s pretend its not his mother. let’s say its a gay room mate. You know your room mate normally doesn’t vanish for over a week. You haven’t seen him in days. Your radar, as in a normal human sense versus the online “most circle to defend the honor of slutty gays defense”, wouldn’t go off to say or do something? Are you freaking kidding me with this shit?
Again- glad he turned out unhurt, but as someone else said, that was not a foregone conclusion. How long should the mother have waited to find out where her son was? A week? 2 weeks? 5 weeks? 6 months as one idiot posted because he’s 22 like that matters?
God, if I ever go missing I don’t one any of you fuckers as a friend or family member. Thankfully none of them are like you.
Kele
Maybe she didn’t know the gender of the person at the time he left. The guy (sorry he’s 22 so not a kid) might be bi or maybe wasn’t “out” when he left and just told her he was going on a date with someone he met on the internet. We don’t even know for sure the person he hooked up with is a guy, it could have been a girl. Hell I’m gay and I moved in with a girl I got along with and we hung out a lot, and if we’d been in San Fran during pride we would have gone to it and had a blast. We don’t know all the details. We just know that he was irresponsible and needlessly worried his mother because he got distracted having a good time and didn’t think about what his mother was thinking. I learned through more than one worried call to keep in touch with my mom on a regular basis even though we’re on opposite coasts. If she hears about something major happening where I live and I don’t ‘check in’ she gets worried.
Will L
As a couple of people have stated, it doesn’t matter if he’s 22, 32 or 42. Meeting someone online and disappearing for a week is irresponsible on his part. It’s good that she didn’t wait. She doesn’t have a problem – she’s merely being a MOTHER. Now, let’s get back to bitch slapping that heartless little bastard who would put his mother through this.
Deborah Berlingeri
@Mark: The referenced web site website was owned by an unknown individual who donated it’s use for the cause to find my son. It belongs to him/her and that person has the right to sell it if he chooses. I’m just glad he let us use it as it facilitated his safe return.
Bailey
I still wanna bang him!
Deborah Berlingeri
I have nothing but the utmost respect for the community at large, and yes that includes the straight AND the gay community, ordinary citizens and especially the media. I think this situation shows how much can be accomplished when friends and family work together. I apologize if some of my comments may have been misinterpreted as somehow disingenuious but I had just heard from my son a few moments before and was probably not my best self, having been sleep deprived. I hope folks come away from this with an increased awareness to implement “safe call” precautions so if you choose to meet an online stranger, tell a trusted friend what you know about that individual and arrange for them to call the police if they don’t hear from you at a predetermined time. Thank you San Francisco for caring about Evan.
B
No. 42 · UsualPlayer wrote, “The comments are funny because normal human reactions are not supposed to happen when one is trying to defend the irresponsible.”
If you check the news articles, a posting on June 26 at 12:20 AM indicated that someone saw a posting from his mom that he had been found, which means on June 25 if his mom goes to bed before midnight. The reports said he had last talked to family members on June 19. If he normally talks to his parents as frequently as once per week, he’d have every expectation that nobody would overreact if they hadn’t heard from him in under a week, and would not be expecting a call from them given that he had talked to a family member on June 19.
He couldn’t take incoming calls because the battery on his cell phone had died. The first report that he was missing appeared on June 24 (link below), so most likely his battery died over the weekend, at which point his mom panicked due to not getting through by phone. He probably didn’t get a chance to replace the battery until Monday, so he was probably out of contact by phone for at most a day or two. The missing person report was merely due to a timing glitch and a parent overreacting.
For citations, try the following:
http://missionlocal.org/2012/06/man-reported-missing-this-weekend-found-safe/
http://blog.sfgate.com/inthemission/2012/06/24/police-ask-publics-help-in-missing-persons-case/
shannon
SOUNDS LIKE YET ANOTHER CRACK ADDICTED METH HEAD TO ME………….DRUGS………
UsualPlayers
Let’s look what you link to
“The young man reported missing last week has been found, according to his mother. Evan Flanary, 22, was reported missing by his mother, Deborah Berlingeri.”
He was reported missing and he didn’t show up for days is how one should properly read that above sentence. But hey, I am not trying to rationalize irresponsibility.
I am not interested by the way in your “ifs” or sad excuses about cell phones dying. This is quite literally the stupidest excuse he could make considering he hooked up with someone else who presumably has a cell phone since they met that way.
UsualPlayers
Let’s gild the lily with the idiots here
He went missing on the 19th
That’s Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday- 5 days at the very least. The cell phone went dead b.s. is retarded and so are the people making the excuse. I doubt this is a guy considering he’s using his cell for picks ups who goes very long without checking messages. Anyone else buying that he’s that kind of person who goes off the grid for days without checking messages? One thing I read by someone who claimed to know him is that he just didn’t give a shit. And given the response here, why should he?
Look at the end of the day, I happy they found the guy and that he was safe. I don’t wish ill on anyone. I just also wish that parts of the gay community that condone irresponsibility would stop condoning it. You aren’t doing anyone, especially irresponsible guys like this, any favors.
mc
Per the mom’s facebook pages she hadn’t heard from him since 6/19 when he was meeting up with a stranger , reported him missing 6/21, had flyers passed out by 6/23 & he was found 6/25 just before she was to do an interview on a local television station. I don’t blame her for worrying no matter his age, and for reporting him missing. The victim of that Canadian serial killer was a lot older & the family had reported him missing on the day of or just before he was killed.
The outcome could have been a lot worse for this young man so people should just consider this instead of trying to castigate someone for worrying too much. You are meeting strangers on these hook up sites so maybe consider taking some precautions like leaving the info on who you’re meeting & where with a friend or a relative–also checking phone batteries to make sure it works would be nice.
nikko
@George: What?! He lives at home and he doesn’t call after being away for a week? Where did you learn consideration and responsibility?!
B
No. 50 · UsualPlayers wrote, “I am not interested by the way in your “ifs” or sad excuses about cell phones dying.”
What you really seem to mean is that your are not interested in the facts. He had a problem with his battery and apparently took a few days to fix it. You don’t know how often he calls his parents, and whether he would reasonably have expected a call from them during the time the phone was not working given that he talked to someone in his family the previous Tuesday.
If the time the phone was down was under the mean time between calls, it isn’t surprising if he thought nothing of it. Also, while he might have mentioned that he was going to meet someone, he could easily have said that as a casual comment, perhaps indicating that he couldn’t talk very long. Regardless, there is absolutely no reason to criticize him given that none of you have a clue as to what the situation actually was.
One might add that if his new friend had a cell phone, that was irrelevant – he wouldn’t receive calls from his parents on that one and might not have planned to call his family so soon after talking with them the previous Tuesday.
Re No. 52 · nikko : The guy does not live in his parents’ home. Some Queerty commenter jumped to conclusions and a bunch of others started taking his misstatement as a fact. I even provided a link to a news article indicating that he does not live at home and people still don’t get it.
Andrew
Basically it’s great that he is safe.
Daez
@Spike: He is a loser because he lives at home? Something like 75% of the population lives at home until the age of 25 or longer now. I would say the losers are the ones that live with roommates in run down apartments in the slums and binge all night while sleeping all day (except the few hours they go to work).
Daez
@Cam: Yes, it says you respect HIS privacy. She most likely shared this information with the police, but the public really did not need to know. Your argument holds no water.
brad
@Spike – Not all mothers stop worrying about their kids after 18. I know, shocking…
darkorient
Mom rocks. Son sucks. The end.
UsualPlayers
the facts have been pointed out multiple times
Spinning those facts to agree with your warped sense of responsibility are not “the facts”
when you stick an “if” in front of a sentence, it means its not a fact. its either a conditional or an interpretation and either way- its not a known fact.
what i am saying B is that you are a retard and lack basic reasoning skills
re mc’s post
those are the facts
the rest is our judgement of what we think fo the facts
I think the kid sounds irresponsible based on those facts
not based on if statements
UsualPlayers
This hits on the real reason they are defending this kid
“You are meeting strangers on these hook up sites so maybe consider taking some precautions like leaving the info on who you’re meeting & where with a friend or a relative–also checking phone batteries to make sure it works would be nice.”
They see in this kids irresponsibility their own fuck ups and stupidity so they feel compelled to defend his irresponsible behavior. I am not pretending I haven’t made these mistakes, but what he did was indeed dangerous and his mother was indeed right to take the precautions she did.
However for some here to admit that some of the behaviors in our community are dangerous is somehow in their mind to give in to the homophobe who questions our sexual orientation
To me, thats what all these weird defenses of a irresponsible set of actions come from
Even the phone issue is absurd. He didn’t have a cell and we are supposed to believe he knew no one with a cell when his phone died out? Who here is that stupid?
B
No. 59 · UsualPlayers made a fool of himself by saying, “the facts have been pointed out multiple times Spinning those facts to agree with your warped sense of responsibility are not “the facts””
This UsualPlayers guy is either a fool or a liar. The facts that are known – stated in news reports – is that his cell phone’s battery died. He didn’t get a chance to replace it for a few days (possibly because of everything going on over Pride weekend). As to the
UsualPlayers objection to the use of the word “if”, we have limited information. There are plausible cases, timing dependent, in which this guy’s behavior was reasonable. What we know is that he talked to a family member on June 19 and on June 25. “mc” claimed that his mother reported him missing on June 21, citing a facebook page but not providing any publicly accessible link, but with no information as to when she tried to call him. There is simply a lot we do not know, but there are some possible combinations of events for which both his behavior and that of his mother are reasonable.
Now, this may be a bit hard for UsualPlayers to understand, but some of us actually think it is bad form to call some person “irresponsible” when we don’t have all the facts and when plausible sequences of events are consistent with responsible behavior.
What could have happened is the following:
The guy in question talks to his parents or other family members on June 19 and doesn’t expect them to call again for about a week. His cell phone is down for a few days due to a battery problem, but he is not expecting an important call, so he doesn’t worry about it. Meanwhile his mother calls during that week, sets a relatively short timeout when the call doesn’t go through, and when the timeout expires, files a missing persons report. Unfortunately, the timeout expired before the battery got replaced and recharged. The result is basically what happened – a missing persons report followed by everyone finding out that everything was OK and nobody was really missing.
So, the whole incident could plausibly simply be a timing glitch (the usual term is “race condition”). If you are not familiar with the concept, try writing some multithreaded software. If you haven’t done this before, don’t be surprised if your blood pressure goes through the roof as you try to figure out why your program isn’t working. If you have a lot of experience with this sort of thing and the program seems to work, the first thought that will pop into your head is, “Did I create enough test cases to reliably test this program?”
The bottom line, however, is really simple: don’t criticize him on a public forum when you don’t have all the relevant facts. It’s really bad form to do that.
Larry Jenkins
I can’t tell you how happy I am to read your great report on the safe return of Evan Flanary! There are so many articles about the indignities and violence we seem to still face regularly. Thank you once again for promptly providing this wonderful news! I really am relieved Evan’s situation was positive. I wish we received more outcomes such as this.
Stupid
I’m glad my mom doesn’t care about what happens to me!