Las Vegas family skips Thanksgiving dinner as search for missing father continues
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - An east Las Vegas family opted to forgo a traditional Thanksgiving meal this year as there would be an empty seat at the dinner table.
David Ramirez has been missing for 23 days now and his family is not giving up their search.
On Thanksgiving, FOX5’s Kim Passoth visited their home where he was last seen and went out with his daughter in the neighborhood.
“Everywhere I go I carry these. If I am not putting them up, I am physically giving them to someone… I don’t sleep because what if I fall asleep and I miss it and it is him? I can’t eat because what if he’s not eating?” said Julieta Jimenez while driving with a stack of missing-person flyers next to her.
Video from the morning he went missing shows him walking out the front door, pausing for a moment looking uncertain, then walking into the middle of the street and out of frame. Since then, his family has looked for him everywhere they can think of.
“You have gone to shelters, you have gone to hospitals, really everything that you can think of?,” asked Passoth.
“Shelters, hospitals, bus stations, RTC, coroner’s office,” Jimenez replied.
“You have even gone so far as to go into the tunnel system yourself,” Passoth questioned.
“I have… it is scary but… I had a couple of the guys down there say, ‘You don’t have to worry about it. If he is hungry, we will feed him. If he is cold, we will give him a jacket,’” Jimenez recounted.
The family lives just a couple blocks from the Wetlands and the wash system, home to many of the unhoused.
“Right down there is a tunnel actually and they hang out there you can find beds,” Jimenez pointed out to Passoth while driving the neighborhood.
Search dogs have been brought in with no luck. The family wants to hear from anyone, anytime with any lead.
“If they think they see him, I don’t mind the calls at two in the morning. I will get in my car and drive out,” Jimenez shared.
In the last few weeks, Ramirez has missed celebrating his birthday, and his daughter’s and his granddaughter’s birthdays. Now he has also missed Thanksgiving but his family continued his Thanksgiving tradition of putting the Christmas lights up.
“We did it for him… I cried all morning. That was his job... He is alive somewhere,” Jimenez expressed.
His family thinks Ramirez would look a little different after 23 days of being missing, maybe with a mustache.
He does have tattoos on his calves and shoulders and is missing a front tooth.
Anyone with information on where he is can contact Metro Police at or his family. They can be reached (702) 828-3111 or his family at 702-969-5586.
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