The mother of a 20-year-old from Newton who went on an “off-the grid” cross-country trek to gather fodder for a book has reported her son is missing.
Susanne Landgrebe of Newton says she last heard from her son, Daniel, on June 24.
“In Cheyenne, Wyoming, they ran into this Freight Train Riders of America gang. If you Google anything about them, they’re like a horrible, violent gang that are well-known. I’d never heard of them, but they’re horrible,” Landgrebe says. “…Daniel got a knife pulled on him for getting in a freight car where one of the guys was in.”
Landgrebe says during her last conversation with her son, Daniel said he was in Salt Lake City, Utah, and planned to make his way to Montana. He promised to call her once every two days.
“We had a lot of words and conversations because he adamantly was opposed to taking a cell phone,” Landgrebe says. “He wanted to kind of live in survival mode and he was writing a book.”
Eleven days ago Daniel told his mother he planned to avoid the train gang he had just encountered by taking a bus from Ogden, Utah, to Pocatello, Idaho.
“And then he was going to train-hop from Pocatello, Idaho, up to Dillon, Montana,” she says, “and I haven’t heard from him since.”
Langrebe says if she doesn’t hear from her son soon, she will travel to Idaho to look for him. Daniel Landgrebe left Newton on May 25.
(Reporting by Jamie Grout, KCOB, Newton)