A billboard stands near the entrance of the four-day Electric Forest music festival in Rothbury, Mich., Thursday, June 22, 2023. Kevin Graves disappeared at the event in 2018 and has not been found. (Gary Graves via AP)
ROTHBURY, Mich. (AP) — A large billboard near a popular music festival in northern Michigan is being used to remind thousands of visitors that a man who attended the same event in 2018 is still missing.
The billboard, with a photo of Kevin Graves, urges people at the four-day Electric Forest festival to call police with any tips. The festival started Thursday.
“Whatever it takes,” his father, Gary Graves, 78, said. “I don’t care if I go broke. I’m gonna keep trying my best.”
Graves, 28, was last seen at the outdoor venue in Oceana County. After some tension with a girlfriend, he said he was returning to his tent, investigators said. He hasn’t been found.
Graves lived in Oakland County in suburban Detroit, where a missing person report was filed. There’s been no bank or phone activity.
“I don’t have anything to lead me in a direction that something criminal happened to him,” sheriff’s Det. Sgt. David Bach told MLive.com. “Everyone has told me the same story, that he left the group of people that he went with and after that he disappeared.”
Police at the time searched with specially trained dogs and dozens of volunteers, while divers checked area lakes.
“There’s no such thing as closure,” Gary Graves said. “This will never be over. Never. It’s just hard to explain.”
