Six months ago former New York Giants cornerback Samuel Beal dropped his girlfriend off at a family member's house in Michigan and then, instead of driving to work, unexpectedly drove to Virginia Beach.
Then the 29-year-old vanished without a trace.
His girlfriend told police that she let Beal use her car on July 12 and believed he was headed to work, but he never returned home, according to a redacted case report by the Kentwood Police Department in Michigan.
Her car was later found in a parking lot in Virginia Beach.
The girlfriend contacted Kentwood police in August, saying there had been miscommunication about filing a missing person's report. He was added to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS) in October.
Kentwood police said he last had contact with his girlfriend via text on July 13, when he said he would be returning home. Authorities have no idea about his current whereabouts, the case report states.
"Samuel did not bring anything with him aside from the clothes he was wearing, a pair of slides, and his wallet that contained his banking card and driver’s license," NamUS said. "The girlfriend’s vehicle was recovered in Virginia Beach, VA by one of her family members. The vehicle was found with Samuel’s shoes and socks on the floor of the front passenger seat along with some sand on the floor."
The girlfriend told Kentwood police that she does not know why Beal was in Virginia Beach. She realized he had traveled out of state when she got an alert that her car was due for an oil change, the case report states. She said the GPS tracking showed that Beal was in Pennsylvania.
When she called him, he told her that he was still in town and her app must be wrong, according to the case report. The car's GPS later showed the vehicle was in Virginia Beach.
The girlfriend said she talked to Beal, and he admitted to being in Virginia Beach, but did not explain why he was there, according to the report. She told police that he said he had to pay for parking and would be headed home.
Beal's sister, Essence Zhane, told local station WTKR that the family initially believed Beal was trying to "take time for himself," but then became concerned.
"We contacted police departments, businesses around, parking ramps, hotels, I was even on the Airbnb to find out what potential Airbnbs were along that way, we looked at hospitals and checked under every John Doe, psych wards, and down to the morgues," she said.
Beal was drafted by the Giants in the third round of the 2018 supplemental draft. He played six games before opting out of the 2020 season because of the Covid pandemic.
