Hampton port worker still missing 15 months in
HAMPTON — The case of a 48-year-old Hampton man who disappeared without a trace more than 15 months ago is still a mystery to his family, friends and police detectives.
Theodoric “Theo” Hunter Sr., who lived on Hollywood Avenue in the Wythe neighborhood, was reported missing Aug. 27, 2019, two days after he didn’t show up for work at a Norfolk cargo terminal.
Police later learned that a state license plate reader picked up his car on the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel in the early morning of Aug. 25, 2019, about four hours after his wife said she last saw him at home.
But Hampton detectives say they have nothing else to go on. Hunter’s phone went straight to voicemail a few days after he disappeared. His car is nowhere to be found. There’s been no activity on his online accounts.
“We’ve gone through everything — phones, license plate readers, social media, everything — and there is nothing,” Hampton police detective Steve Rodey said. “No
from the front
“Nobody can just see him walking away from his life and his family. Because he was all about his boys, and his job ... It’s not like him not to be in contact with his kids.”
activity on his banks or anything.”
‘Need to know what happened’
Family and friends say they need closure.
Loretta Monroe, 57, of Virginia Beach — who has known Theo since 2005, was married to him between 2010 and 2013 and was still friends with him — says his disappearance “is just awfully strange” and “so not like him.”
“We just need to know what happened, even if he’s not alive,” she said.
Hunter was close to his two sons, both in their early 20s. He has a 2-year-old grandson who was 15 months at the time of his disappearance. Two of Hunter’s birthdays have come and gone, which would make him 50 years old now.
“We talk about him and say, ‘Remember the time Theo did this or said that?,’” Monroe said. “And you just hope that he’s alive. Nobody can just see him walking away from his life and his family. Because he was all about his boys, and his job ... It’s not like him not to be in contact with his kids. If nobody else, he would have stayed in contact with them.”
Hunter grew up in Suffolk and went to high school in Portsmouth. After working retail jobs for years, he landed a maintenance job in Norfolk for Virginia International Terminals, the state’s port operating arm, in 2014, becoming part of the International Longshoremen’s Association a couple months before his disappearance.
‘A walking secret’
His wife, Deirdre “Dee” Gelzhiser, 48, of Hampton — who runs a Portsmouth trucking firm and married Hunter in October 2018 — said she knows nothing about what happened to him. “I don’t have anything,” she said. “Zero. Nothing.”
Gelzhiser said in November 2019 that Hunter “has a lot going on” in his life that he kept her in the dark about. He hardly ever let her meet his family, she said, and corresponded with many people she didn’t know.
“He’s a walking secret,” Gelzhiser said. “He has so much going on that he could be anywhere.”
She said she and Theo were in the process of separating when he disappeared. He moved out of the Hampton house in July 2019 but would still “pop in and pop out” after that.
He came to the house after work on Aug. 24, 2019, hanging up a TV for one of her friends at her request, Gelzhiser said. She said she asked him about a lunchtime meeting he had with a woman that day, and he ended the conversation abruptly by saying he “didn’t want to hear my mouth.”
Gelzhiser said Hunter was in the kitchen when she went to bed about 10:30 p.m. When she woke up a couple hours later, she said, his car was gone, his house key on the kitchen counter.
She said Theo had left the house many times in the past in such an abrupt fashion, though he would always get back in touch.
Gelzhiser said last week that she’s been dealing with other issues lately, such as relatives impacted by the pandemic, and didn’t want to talk about her husband’s case.
“It wouldn’t make sense for me to speculate on anything when I didn’t know anything in the first place,” she said. “I was the last person to know anything.”
Still looking for leads
Hampton detectives have told the family that Hunter’s car — a black 2019 Nissan Altima with the license plates UYY-5688 — was last picked up on a state license plate reader at 3 a.m. on Aug. 25, 2019, heading south on the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel.
After he didn’t report for work for a couple of days, Hunter’s boss at the terminals got in touch with his family, with his mother reporting him missing on Aug. 27, 2019.
Rodey, the Hampton police detective, said there’s always a possibility that Hunter doesn’t want to be found.
“There are times where men and women just want to kind of vanish off the face of the earth,” he said. “They don’t want to deal with anybody, and there’s ways to support themselves ... They can assume different identities and stuff.”
But that’s not Rodey’s hunch, he said, and police are still looking for leads.
Hunter’s life insurance policy hasn’t made any payouts, given that he hasn’t been declared dead. “It hasn’t been touched,” Rodey said.
Several months ago, Rodey showed Hunter’s sons a picture of an unidentified man hospitalized in a New Jersey hit-and-run accident, after a hit came back on a national fingerprint database showing similarities with Hunter’s prints. But it wasn’t him.
Every so often, Rodey said, the automobile company that has a lien on Hunter’s missing Nissan calls police to see if the car has turned up. So far it hasn’t.
Afew months ago, Monroe called sheriff’s investigators in Sussex County about the possibility that aman found dead there might be Hunter. That wasn’t him, either.
Monroe regularly Googles Hunter’s name looking for leads. “There was another ‘Theodore Hunter’ who passed away in Georgia in July,” she said. “They had a picture of him, and they’re roughly the same age. But it wasn’t him.”
Approaching the FBI
Three women — Monroe, Hunter’s mother and another ex-wife — went to the FBI’s regional office in December to press the agency to look into the disappearance. But an FBI special agent told them they wouldn’t take up the case unless they were “invited by the local police to assist.”
So far, Hampton police have not made such a referral, though a division spokesman said it’s not out of the question.
“Investigators continue to explore all investigative leads, and we will continue to utilize every possible resource to locate this individual,” Hampton Police Sgt. Reggie Williams said. “These resources include our valued partnerships with both local and federal agencies, and involving our federal partners in this investigation is not off of the table.”
“I’d be more than happy to sit down with them and see what other avenues they might have,” Rodey added.
“They have some other tools.”
Fearing the worst
In the meantime, Hunter’s family is trying to come to grips with what’s happened.
His mother, Vertley Hunter, 65, of Norfolk, said she misses her son “terribly” and fears the worst. “I think he’s dead, actually,” she said. “It’s not like him not get in touch with his boss man, and not to call his children.”
Hunter’s brother, Jessie Hunter, 47, of Norfolk, hasn’t given up hope. He said he and Theo had been planning a fishing trip with their sons before he disappeared. “I’m hoping to see my brother again,” he said.
Priscilla Hunter, 48, of Norfolk — who was married to Hunter from 1999 to 2007 and is the mother of his two sons — said it’s “way out of character” for him to just take off without a trace. She said Theo was very close with his boys, Quinton, 24, and Theodoric Jr., 22, speaking with them several times a week.
Ten days before his disappearance, Hunter took both sons to a Hampton Nissan dealership to get them new cars, co-signing loans and promising to cover half the payments.
“Theo ain’t the type that run,” she said. “He don’t run. And if he did leave, he’ll keep in contact with his sons. Let them know ‘I’m all right’ ... So we’ve been wondering if he’s still here. We just want some closing. Tell us something.”
Quinton Hunter, of Norfolk, said the day his father helped them buy the cars was the last day he saw him.
“I don’t know how to feel towards it right now,” he said. “I miss him. I’ll miss him for the holidays ... Sometimes I’ll be in my room just thinking on what if he was still living and stuff like that. And just keeping him in my prayers, that’s all.”
Monroe said Hunter’s sons are “just trying to push through” despite not knowing what happened to their father.
“I hope they find him, that’s for sure,” she said of police investigators. “No matter what, if he’s dead or alive, I hope they find him.”
Anyone who has seen Hunter or his car — abandoned or otherwise — or has information that could help police is asked to call Hampton police at 757–727– 6111 or the Crime Line at 1–888-LOCK-U-UP.
Tipsters can also send an anonymous tip by visiting P3Tips.com. Crime Line callers don’t have to appear in court and could be eligible for a cash reward up to $1,000.
— Loretta Monroe