Alumni Reported Missing Since Feb.

Michael J.A. Wallace ’95 was reported missing on Feb. 4. The 29-year-old former Harvard football player was last seen at his home in Menlo Park, Calif., a peninsula south of San Francisco.

“He’s always smiling,” older sister Kim Jaynes said. “And well dressed. I think he was wearing black dress pants when he left.”

Wallace had called his ex-wife that day at 2 p.m. to tell her he would not be able to make a meeting they had planned. She called the police because she thought this was unusual, said Bronwyn Hogan, Public Information Officer at the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

The phone conversation is the last known contact anyone had with Wallace, who had lost his job at a technology company and separated from his wife in the last year, said Hogan.

“He suffered from depression,” Jaynes said. “Maybe he wanted to or needed to escape.”

Hogan surmised that since Wallace left all the cars at home, he was probably traveling on foot.

“We’ve monitored his credit cards, bank accounts and cell phone, and [there is] no action,” Jaynes said. “But his cell phone isn’t at home, so he must have it.”

A McDonald’s manager may have sighted Wallace on Feb. 23 in his restaurant in Pacifica, Calif., Hogan said.

The manager reported encountering a customer unable to pay who fit Wallace’s description. The man was wearing a white baseball cap and a windbreaker.

Although Wallace’s family has speculated many causes—including suicide—for his disappearance, Jaynes said they are thinking optimistically.

Wallace visited home often and was always open with his family, she said. She talked to him on the phone about five times a week before he disappeared.

Jaynes said that Wallace liked to lose himself in movies, especially his favorite, The Bourne Identity—a movie about an amnesiac searching for his identity.

“He used movies to explain how he was feeling,” Jaynes said.

She expressed her sentiment that Wallace’s intelligence may have been a handicap.

“Harvard people are too bright for their own good,” Janyes said. “At least, he was.”

But Jaynes, Wallace’s older brother Gary and the rest of his family hope that this sharp mind will bring Wallace back to them soon.

“We want him to know we love him and miss him,” Janyes said.

Wallace is 6 feet tall, 180 pounds and has dark hair and brown eyes, according to his sister Kim Jaynes.

More information on Wallace’s disappearance can be found at: http://www.getting2goal.com/mike.html.

—HANA R. ALBERTS