ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605200081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
THE MISSING MAN'S friends and family are alternating between worry and anger.
Christa Atwell thought it was strange two years ago when her new roommate warned her he might disappear for a few days at a time.
Two years passed, and her roommate, Brad "Mugsy" Wagner, never lived up to that warning. Until now.
Wagner, 21, has been missing for more than a week after renting a 1996 maroon Oldsmobile Achieva at 8 a.m. on May 11, the day he told friends and family he was to graduate with a chemical engineering degree from Virginia Tech.
What they didn't know, however, was that the Bristol native had not been enrolled at the university since fall 1993. A police investigation found that he entered Tech in 1992 as a freshman but left college in mid-1993.
His father officially reported him missing Monday.
"He said, 'Christa, if I ever go off, if I ever go away for a few days, don't worry. I'll be back,''' Atwell, a Tech junior, recalled. "That makes me think, well, maybe he's been planning this all along."
Beyond speculation, however, friends and family do not know how or why Wagner disappeared. Several of his friends say they are alternating between anger and worry. They wonder whether Wagner purposely fled town or was kidnapped, injured or worse.
"It's been so many days now, so many scenarios that pass through your head," said James Waltrip, a Radford University student and friend of Wagner's. "Maybe he was going to tell his parents, maybe he wasn't. I'm really not sure exactly what happened. I guess he'll be the only one that ever knows, if he doesn't come back."
People who know Wagner are looking for answers and straining their memories for clues. A neighbor in Bristol even called Wagner's father, John, when she received a strange hang-up call from Houston a few days ago that was traced to a hospital. The neighbor does not know anyone in Texas.
"She said, 'This may be the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, but I know Brad real well and I want him to call you,''' said John Wagner, who admits it could have been a wrong number but told police about the lead anyway. Brad Wagner was not listed in the hospital's patient logs.
Many people who were close to Wagner said they had no reason to believe he was not as he seemed: a typical college student who drank beer now and then, watched a lot of TV and spent time with friends.
His father had been sending money for tuition, expenses and rent for four years and faithfully talked to his son every week. The two often attended Tech football and basketball games together, and Wagner came home during the summers to work.
Roommates saw Wagner leave their house on Wilson Street in Blacksburg nearly every Tuesday and Thursday this year about noon, wearing a tie and carrying a backpack. He would be gone until 6 p.m., and they thought he was going to class.
At times, Wagner would talk to friends about courses and tests. Days before the Virginia Tech graduation, he expressed relief that his final exam in a computer class was over and had taken only 15 minutes.
Atwell said Wagner occasionally locked himself in his room all morning, saying he was working on a school project. Most of the time, however, Atwell did not see Wagner study much.
"Everyone said he was really smart," said Atwell, who moved out of the house, which she had shared with Wagner and two other roommates, in March. "I just didn't pay much attention to it."
Wagner's friends always called him Mugsy; no one referred to him as Brad. He favored baseball caps and goofy ties with Mickey Mouse prints and wore his hair short in the back but long enough in the front to pull it back into a ponytail.
Friends cannot recall Wagner ever holding a job during the school year. He liked to hunt and fish and spent a lot of time watching sports or movies on television. Frequently, he would drop by Waltrip's house in Blacksburg to drink a few beers or throw horseshoes.
Those visits occasionally took place on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons, the days his roommates thought he had classes.
"There was never any point where he let on anything that school wasn't going well," Waltrip said.
Wagner frequently went home to Bristol on the weekends, partly to see his mother, who is terminally ill. But friends said he never talked about his mother or many other aspects of his personal life.
"I always thought he was holding repressed feelings because his mom's dying of cancer," said Sam Larson, Wagner's roommate for a little more than a year. "You could tell something was going on, he was always thinking. ... I just figured it was his mom he was thinking about. Now I think it was living the lie."
Wagner was supposed to move out of the house he shared with Larson and another roommate June 1. He told friends and family he had a chemical engineering job in Charlotte, N.C.
John Wagner talked to his son the night before graduation day and drove to Blacksburg the next morning. There were no grand graduation plans; the father and son just planned to go to the ceremony.
Although the door was unlocked, Wagner was not at home when his father arrived. Earlier that morning, one of his roommates dropped him off at Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Blacksburg because Wagner's green and beige Bronco was damaged in a minor accident a few days before.
His father waited at the house, hoping his son would finally arrive, but gave up by late afternoon and called the Blacksburg police.
Wagner's belongings are still in his room. He also left behind $200 in cash on his bed stand, Larson said. The two roommates gave Wagner two-thirds of the $700 they owed in rent this month, which Wagner was supposed to deposit into his bank account so he could write one check.
The check bounced, Larson said, and their cable service has been turned off because Wagner let the account reach $132 without paying the bill. The roommates had been giving Wagner money each month because the cable service was in his name.
"Maybe he left [the cash] there knowing the rent check would bounce," Larson speculated.
John Wagner is not concerned about the money or whether his son was attending school or not. He just wants to hear from him.
Wagner's friends also want to know he is OK. But they can't help but feel betrayed.
"All these things could happen; people get killed every day," Waltrip said. "All he did was get out of college. All he had to do was come clean."
Anyone with information about Wagner's whereabouts should call the Blacksburg police at (540) 961-1150.
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Wagner.by CNBELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above