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When Detreck Foster vanished from a small Kansas town in the Spring of 2020, his case barely made headlines. Police then deemed his mysterious disappearance a suspected homicide.
But with sparse updates in the case, it has seemingly fallen off the radar. But the mother of his children refuses to give up and hopes to finally get some answers.
For five years, Jordan Foster has been fighting to keep Detreck’s story alive and to find out what happened to him, despite what she describes as silence from authorities and indifference from the small community where they grew up together and built their life.
“Nobody cares about another missing Black man,” she told The Independent. “But I do. His daughters do.”
Foster has known Detreck since they were teenagers living in Parsons, Kansas. They were married and have two daughters together. Even though they were separated, and lived in separate cities at the time of his disappearance, he always stayed in touch with his girls.
So when days and weeks passed without a word from him, his loved ones grew increasingly worried.
Around that same time, the world came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Detreck was between jobs. But shortly before he vanished, he had landed a new role at FedEx.
Foster told The Independent that he would never just disappear, especially “not from his family and not from his daughters. They were his whole world.”
His missed birthdays, holidays and other special occasions. But it was when he failed to call his mother on May 10 – Mother’s Day – Foster felt certain about her feeling of dread that something horrible had happened to him.
“He always calls his mother, his sister and myself on Mother’s Day,” Foster said. “He was close to his mother – he always called her. So when even she didn’t hear from him, we knew something was wrong.”
Detreck was reported missing on May 12, 2020.
Next month, his oldest, now 18, will graduate from high school.
“They had this incredible bond,” Foster said, adding that she believed their daughter knew something was wrong when he disappeared.
Their youngest has taken on his love of music. Every time she hears anything by Anthony Hamilton, his daughter quips, “that’s what daddy liked,” Foster said.
April 12, 2020 was the last time anyone ever saw or spoke to Detreck, according to the Independence Police Department and the Kansas State Bureau of Investigation.
But instead of getting answers, Foster said she gets rumors and theories from the people in the small community where he lived.
“I believe someone in Independence knows something, but no one is speaking up,” she said. “Maybe it’s because of fear, I don’t know, but we need someone to come forward.”
Foster said that in the early days of his disappearance, she would post fliers around town, but many were torn down.
The Independence Police Department and the Kansas Bureau of Investigations are investigating the case and have deemed it a suspected homicide.
But investigators have not shared details of what led them to believe that he was possibly murdered.
This week, as April 12 marked five years since he was last seen or heard from, the authorities announced a renewed call for help for answers.
“Despite exhaustive investigative efforts, including extensive searches and numerous interviews, Mr. Foster’s whereabouts remain unknown,” according to the press release.
The department said detectives from the Independence Police Department, in collaboration with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), are continuing to follow up on all leads.
“We are committed to uncovering the truth and bringing Detreck Julian Foster home,” Derek Bryant, Assistant Chief of the Independence Police Department said in the release. “We urge anyone who may have seen something—no matter how insignificant it may seem—to come forward.”
In the meantime, Foster continues to post updates and calls for tips on his Facebook page.
“It’s been a hard five years,” Foster said. “We just want answers. You can’t properly grieve your loved one if you don’t know where they’re at.”
Anyone with information related to Detreck Foster’s case is urged to call the Independence Police Department at (620) 332-1700, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-KS-CRIME. Submit an anonymous tip at https://www.kbi.ks.gov/MissingPersons/Tip/SubmitTip. There is a $5,000 reward.
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