David Ristovski left his Los Angeles home on March 7, 2011, driving east on Interstate 10 in a white 1996 GMC Safari van. Two days later his van ran out of gas in a remote area near the Arizona–New Mexico line. On the morning of March 9 he called his fiancée asking for money for fuel; that was the last contact anyone had with him.

Searchers found the abandoned van on a back road north of I‑10 and followed footprints that investigators tracked for sixteen miles east into New Mexico. The trail ended at Steins Pass outside Lordsburg near the railroad tracks. Around March 11 there was a reported sighting near those tracks; his wallet with identification, his cell phone, and a water bottle were found nearby. Ristovski, then 32, was a father to an infant son and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was not carrying his medication.

He was described as 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 11 inches, 185 to 200 pounds, brown eyes, shaved head, with a one-inch scar above his right eye, last seen in a black hooded sweatshirt, white t-shirt, black sweatpants, and gray Converse sneakers. His whereabouts remain unknown. Did anyone in the Lordsburg area or along I‑10 see him or pick up a hitchhiker in March 2011?