On June 22, Mac Hightower got a frantic call from his mom. She said his brother, Ollie, had gone on a walk and hadn’t come home the night before. He wasn’t answering his phone either.
Ollie, 29, was diagnosed with schizophrenia 11 years ago. He’d gone missing a few times before, but his family still worried. This time, his brother was in Germany while his mom was at home in DC. It had been less than 24 hours, so they couldn’t file a police report yet. Trying to figure out how to find Ollie from a continent away, Mac had an idea.
Would it be helpful to post on Reddit?
Three days later, on June 25, Omar Hassan was waking up in Laurel. When he first wakes up, he typically checks his email, social media, and Reddit, a social-media app where individuals can post on “subreddits” specific to an area or topic. One of the first things he saw when he logged onto the app was Mac’s post on r/WashingtonDC.
“My brother didn’t come home last night and it’s now been close to 30 hours since we’ve last seen/heard from him,” Mac wrote from his Reddit alias. “He was last seen wearing gray shorts, a dark t-shirt and blue slides (he may be barefoot though).”
He clicked on the post and commented “boost” so that the post would have more comments and thus be “boosted” in the algorithm. There were plenty of others in the DC subreddit who had done the same, and also left Mac reassuring words.
We’re keeping an eye out, neighbor.
Oliver, come home buddy!
So so so so very sorry wishing for the best
Back in Northwest DC, Ollie’s mom, Dana DeBeaumont, and her partner had been going around the city following leads from Reddit and Nextdoor.
“So as things were coming in, we were going out and driving and trying to see those areas,” she says. They had no luck, though—even if there was a confirmed sighting, they’d often get there too late. As time passed, she says, she was getting “more scared and emotional.” She was also worried that the police wouldn’t be actively looking for him.
Hassan went about his day as usual. His job involves working with people with disabilities. When he got home to his apartment complex, he noticed someone lying on the ground outside, talking to himself. Hassan initially went inside to take care of something, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. When he came back outside, the person was sitting up.
“I’m seeing his face and I’m like, I’ve seen that face this morning. So I said, ‘Hey, is your name Oliver?’ He’s like, ‘Yes?’ And I’m like, ‘No way,’ ” Hassan recalls.
He couldn’t believe that the person whose photo he had seen that morning—and boosted—was sitting in front of him, nearly an hour away from his own home. Hassan told Ollie that not only was his family looking for him, but “the whole of Washington, DC, is looking for you right now.”
On Mac’s post, he had instructed anyone who might find Ollie to call the police. Hassan did just that, and then commented on the post.
Messaged you, found Oliver!
Mac didn’t receive the update until several hours later, because he was asleep in Germany. But the police called DeBeaumont, who was overjoyed to reunite with her son. When Mac woke up and saw the message, he too was thrilled. “My eyes welled up with tears,” he says.
While the circumstances that led to Ollie coming home feel near-miraculous—a Reddit post landing on the page of a person who lives an hour away and works with individuals with disabilities—Mac says that the family’s story is far from unique.
“While we were looking for him, there were a number of other people who reached out, sharing their own personal stories with mental illness, whether themselves or a loved one, of how they had went missing before,” Mac says. “It was helpful. It felt like we were getting somewhere rather than just filing a police report and hoping for the best.”
Around 80 percent of adults who are reported missing are struggling with their mental health. Ollie is also mixed-race, and half Black—while Black Americans make up only 13 percent of the US population, they comprise roughly 37 percent of missing persons cases. Studies have shown that less police and media attention is often paid to cases involving Black individuals who go missing, which can have dire implications for their outcomes.
DeBeaumont says that having a family member with a mental illness like schizophrenia can be isolating. In this case, though, she felt the community rallied around them.
“When you have someone with severe mental illness in your family, people avoid you, and even on the streets, when you see someone who’s walking around talking to themselves, a lot of people just ignore it. But that didn’t happen here,” she says.
Friends and acquaintances on Reddit posted fond memories of Ollie. Neighbors came to DeBeaumont’s door to introduce themselves and say that they often see Ollie on walks around the block, and that they’d be looking for him.
Ollie’s family says that while the internet can be portrayed as an overwhelmingly negative place, moments like this prove that communities can use social media for good.
“This is a perfect example of how it gives us a readily available resource to work together and just care about your neighbor,” DeBeaumont says.
Ollie is now safe at home with his family. Hassan’s gratitude that Olllie showed up outside his door that day can be summed up by one of his Reddit comments.
Never been so glad to see someone ever.
