DATE OF LAST CONTACT: 16th March 1992
MISSING FROM: Reported missing from Keota, Keokuk County, Iowa. However, last known to be alive in Grand Canyon Village, Arizona.
DATE OF BIRTH: 3rd March 1975
AGE AT DISAPPEARANCE: 17
HEIGHT: 6’2
WEIGHT: 145 lbs
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: White male. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Aaron has a 1 inch scar on his right wrist and moles on his back. He had a pierced left ear and wears glasses. Aaron may have a metal pin in his arm.
INVESTIGATING AGENCY: Keokuk County Sheriff’s Office
BASIC CASE FACTS
- In 1992 Aaron allegedly stole a rural mail carrier’s vehicle which he abandoned on a nature trail.
- Some days later, he left home in the family car without telling anyone where he was going.
- The car was later found parked about 50 miles away with no sign of Aaron.
- Over the next three months he called home several times from various different cities.
- All contact with his family ceased in 1993.
- In 2015 Aaron’s brother spoke to his estranged father who confirmed that Aaron had visited him in 1993 and that he left to visit a girl in Colorado. There has been no contact with Aaron since.
I almost didn’t write a post on Aaron. His story has intrigued me for a while but there is just barely anything out there about him so I set my research aside. But something niggled in the back of my mind and I had one final push. After several hours of rawling through archives and old sites I managed to find a decade old message board where his brother had made postings and one very badly scanned, barely readable archived newspaper article in a tiny local newspaper called The Keota Eagle. I believe this to be the only article ever written about Aaron and I linked it in the sources section below. With this new information the confusing elements in his case finally began to clear.
The events surrounding Aaron’s disappearance are not what they seem. Every single online resource except one (Missinginiowa.org) incorrectly reports the details of his disappearance – conflating events which happened over several days into a single few hours. This has given the wrong impression about what happened to Aaron. I hope by writing this I am able to clear up the imformation and explain correctly what happened to him.
AARON’S LIFE
Aaron Michael Pate was born on the 3rd March 1975. The family originally lived in the Quad Cities, where his brother describes their home as being “in the ghetto”. The family was totally estranged from Aaron’s father; Randy Clyde Pate, who lived in a different state, and Aaron had only met his dad twice. His mother, Phyllis Kirkpatrick, moved Aaron – along with his brother Ian and sisters Christine and Jennifer – to the small Iowa town of Keota in Keokuk County in hopes of escaping their bleak inner city life and starting afresh in the countryside. Keota is tiny, with less than a thousand inhabitants, and Aaron’s brother notes that the family were often treated as outcasts. “I can hardly describe the mocking and social distain my whole family lived through”. I have read similar comments from people online who have moved to Keota only to find themselves hounded out of town by the close-knit community. What is clear is that, unless you had an interest in farming, there wasn’t much happening in Keota to entertain teens from the city.
Phyllis was a single mother raising four kids on welfare and many in the town looked down on the family, often viewing them as troublemakers. There are comments online from people who remember Phyllis as being somewhat of a loose cannon an someone even called her “crazy and insane” but despite potential problems in the home, Ian says his mom did everything out of love for her kids.
I couldn’t find out a great deal about Aaron beyond the fact that he enjoyed skating and riding his bike on the Kewash Nature Trail. But many of his old friends remember him as quiet and friendly and he had no history of getting into trouble. At the time he disappeared Aaron had been talking about going to Arizona to visit his father who lived in Grand Canyon. Aaron really didn’t know his dad and had only met him a couple of times. There may have been problems at home for Aaron, indicated by a Facebook post his brother wrote that said “Lots of recollections about Aaron and why/how things were the way they were back then. Fond memories and bitter tastes”. All may not have been well in the home.
DISAPPEARANCE
“Aaron was last seen in Keota, Iowa on March 16, 1992. He didn’t have a history of getting into trouble, but police believe he stole a vehicle which was later found abandoned on the Kewash Nature Trail. There was no sign of Aaron at the scene and he has never been heard from again. Police believe he left of his own accord“
The above write-up is taken from the Charley Project website about Aaron’s disappearance. It is indicative of the many write-ups on this case and, with one exception, every single one confuses events and the timeline and misses out important information. I hope I can clarify things.
The last time Aaron’s friend Mike Chambers saw him was on Saturday 14th March 1992. Aaron and several of his friends attended a concert at The Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The concert was a double bill where two bands were playing: Tesla and Firehouse.
At some prior to this concert Aaron had stolen a rural mail delivery vehicle from behind a post office and driven it to the Kewash Nature Trail where it was discovered abandoned. Mike noted that Aaron was worried about it on the night of the concert and in fact the police were looking for Aaron. I should mention that it is only ‘alleged’ that Aaron took the vehicle but, despite it appearing to be out of character for him, expressing worry about it to his friends seems to suggest he was responsible.
The Kewash Nature Trail is long trail that stretches from Keota to the town of Washington, about 20 miles away. Aaron knew the trail well as he and his friends used to ride their bikes along it as kids. Much of the trail is not accessible to vehicles. I have no idea why Aaron would steal the vehicle and drive it down a nature trail but Aaron was seventeen and it does seem like the kind of thing that bored teens in a rural village might do.
It is worth mentionng here that stealing a mail carrier’s vehicle is not just your everyday vehicle theft. In fact, it is a Federal offence and carries sentences of up to five years in a Federal prison and fines of up to $250,000. That’s pretty serious stuff and it’s no surprise that Aaron was worried! But, on a realistic level, Aaron was still a minor with no criminal history – the likelihood is that he would recieve a very minor sentence or fine.
When Mike Chambers went to school the next week, Aaron didn’t show and so on Wednesday he called Phyllis and asked her where Aaron was. She told him Aaron wasn’t there and she didn’t know where he was. At some point over the weekend Aaron had taken the family car and driven to Iowa City, about 50 miles to the north of Keota, where he parked the car in the parking lot at the back of the public library. The car was later towed because it had accumulated a number of unpaid parking fines. Aaron’s family believe that he then walked to the Greyhound bus station a couple of blocks away and caught a bus or hitchhiked out of town.
In the next few weeks the police repeatedly contacted the family about Aaron’s whereabouts and were quite aware that he was missing, but no missing person report was filed at the time – possibly because Aaron was wanted in connection to the vehicle theft. Aaron’s family eventually officially reported him as a missing person on 30th April 1993, over a year after he disappeared.
Most online resources imply that Aaron stole the mail carrier’s vehicle on the same day that he drove away in the family car – which gives the impression he was desperately trying to leave town – but this is not the case. The mail carrier’s vehicle was stolen at some point before Aaron left town. The police clearly thought Aaron was responsible for the theft and were blaming him. Rather than trying to use the mail carrier’s vehicle to skip town for some unspecified reason, which is what most write-ups suggest, the truth is that the theft of the vehicle was the reason for him to leave town. It had in fact occurred several days and perhaps up to a week before he eventually drove away in the family car.
Aaron’s family claimed they were unaware of where he had gone, and certainly this is true of his brother; he had apparently driven away in the family car without a word to anyone. Although I admit that I have a sneaking suspicion that Aaron’s mother did know. It seems to me that her reaction when Mike Chambers asked about Aaron’s whereabouts was too blase and unconcerned and I also can’t help wondering why no one seemed particularly concerned about whare the family car had gone. I suspect that Phyllis feared that Aaron may face some hefty charges and perhaps helped him on his way.
PHONECALLS
According to Aaron’s mother he left several messages on the family’s answering machine in the six month’s after he left. Perhaps this explains why she didn’t report him missing immediately – because she knew where he was. No one else ever heard these messages and Ian explained that the family’s answering machine always deleted the poorly recorded messages after they had been listened to. It is interesting to note that Aaron apparently called home three times and coincidentally, each time no one was home and he was forced to leave a message on a malfunctioning answering machine and only his mother ever heard the messages. Was Phyllis protecting her son in case the police should learn his whereabouts?
The first message from Aaron said that he was in Chicago. Apparently he had been seriously injured in an altercation and had been admitted to hospital where he had to have a pin implanted in his wrist. The second message was an undetermined time later and said that he was in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The third message came at the end of Summer 1992 and Aaron said he was at Grand Canyon, Arizona and had met up with his father. That was the last anyone back in Iowa heard from Aaron.
Aaron’s brother knew that Aaron had mentioned visiting his father, but he had no idea where his estranged father was and didn’t know whether they had actually met up or not. For twenty-two years he wondered what had become of his brother, until…
A FATHER’S REVELATION
The Pate family always assumed that Aaron had left with the intention of finding his estranged father but they had no contact with this man – Randall Clyde Pate – until 2015 when Ian heard on the grapevine that his father was in prison locally and decided to visit him and hopefully get some information.
Randall Clyde Pate was born in 1950 and had lived all over the country. I am not sure about his exact relationhip with Phyllis and his children, I am not even sure if they were married, but what is clear is that none of his children had anything to do with him. In 1993 he was living in Grand Canyon, Arizona – a fact of which Aaron seemed aware at the time. Randy has an extensive criminal record and by 2015 he was back in Iowa where he was in prison awaiting trial.
Ian visisted the prison and, in a meting between estranged father and son which must have been fraught with high emotions, Randy confirmed that Aaron did indeed find him in Arizona and spent some time with him there. Randy had no idea that Aaron was even missing and Ian says that Randy was surprised to learn this information. According to Randy, Aaron had apparently left Arizona with the intention of meeting a girl in Boulder, Colorado. Unfortunately nobody knows the name of this girl or anything about her.
Randy didn’t really give too much information on what happened during Aaron’s visit and Ian wanted his father questioned by the police since he was the last person known to have seen Randy alive. He has pushed and pushed for both local and county law enforcement to interview Randy and get a detailed account of what happened in Grand Canyon, but has been disgusted by their lack of action. To this day I am not sure whether Randy was ever thoroughly questioned by law enforcement.
WHAT HAPPENED TO AARON?
It seems clear to me that Aaron never intended to cut off communication with his family. His calls home and messages on the answering machine seem to bear this out. I suspect that his mom knew what his plans were and may have helped him in order to protect him from being arrested for the theft of the mail carrier’s vehicle. I believe this is the reason she never pushed for him to be reported officially missing, because she knew where he was. I think Aaron had been thinking about leaving home for some time. He had mentioned going to find his father to members of his family and his brother isn’t surprised that Aaron wanted out of Keota where his family were viewed as the black sheep. I believe that the police blaming him for the theft of the mail carrier’s vehicle was the catalyst he needed to make his exit. But something happened and communication stopped unexpectedly which worried his mother and caused her to finally report him as missing.
Aaron’s stop in Chicago intrigues me. He apparently got into a violent altercation that led to him needing a metal pin inserted in his wrist. This is no small operation and would require recovery time and expensive hospital bills. Since Aaron was still classed as a minor I am wondering if the hospital would require a parent or guardian, especially if he was there due to a fight. The payment also intrigues me – if Aaron did have insurance then it was probably registered to his mother’s address and she should have recieved the bill confirming his whereabouts etc. Clearly Aaron spent some time in Chicago and was living somewhere.
We know that Aaron eventually made it to his intented destination of Grand Canyon, Arizona where his father lived because he told his mother in the answering machine message and his father confirmed it. But we don’t know how long he was there and, most importantly, we don’t know how father and son’s relationship developed. The specific facts of Aaron’s visit have never been publicly revealed, though I hope Randy had more to tell Ian.
Randy Pate, Aaron’s father, was the last known person to see Aaron alive. While that doesn’t make him guilty of anything, it should at least make him a person of interest until he can be ruled out – certainly he must have more to say about Aaron and the events of his visit such as how long he stayed for, how was his demeanour and what he did while in Arizona.
Randy says that Aaron left to visit a girl in Boulder, Colorado and that might be the truth (in fact I personally believe it was due to Randy’s surprise at his son being missing). Aaron had been travelling around for months and there is no telling who he met on his travels. He very well may have met a girl from Boulder and had always planned to go to visit her after leaving his dad’s home. Unfortunately nobody knows who this girl is – or any information about her at all. Boulder, Colorado, is about 700 miles north of Grand Canyon and, since Aaron had no means of transport, he likely hitchhiked.
I did check unidentified deceased person for someone who might match Aaron, but nobody matched. He also doesn’t show in any unclaimed money databases or prison records. I am sad to say that I do not believe Aaron is still alive. I think he died sometime between fall of 1992 and spring 1993 and that his body lies somewhere in Arizona, Colorado, Utah or New Mexico because these are the most likely states he would pass through to get to Boulder. I come to this conclusion because Aaron didn’t seem to have any intent to cut off communication from his family and although he was probably running away from potential conviction for a federal crime, the statute of limitations on a conviction passed in 1997. Aaron could have returned home or contacted his brother, but he never did.
The key to findig the truth in Aaron’s case lies in uncovering the identity of the girl he went to meet, or in speaking to ANYONE who encountered Aaron in his travels after March 1992. Please reach out if that is you.
Sadly, Aaron’s mother has now passed away and one of his sister’s was murdered in an incident of spousal violence. But his brother and remaining sister would very much like answers about their brother.
SOURCES
The Keota Eagle, front page article – Wednesday, March 30th 2016. (Very poor quality)
Never Seen Again 