Vyacheslav Arjkadyevich Akopov was 52 and living in a trailer in Bladensburg, North Carolina, in late summer 1998. A native of Uzbekistan, he worked at Harriet and Henderson in nearby Clarkton, sent money home to a wife and two children, and often housed fellow Uzbek immigrants until they found work. On September 12, 1998, he was seen in Elizabethtown getting into a light-colored, four-door 1987 Plymouth Caravelle with two men who had been staying at his trailer; that was the last confirmed sighting of him.

When Akopov failed to show up for work, his landlady checked the trailer and found it in disarray: cluttered, a dented refrigerator, photos removed from frames, but most of his belongings and clothes remained. His Uzbek/English dictionary was missing.

Sometime after his disappearance skeletal remains of a man of a similar age were recovered near Wilmington, North Carolina; the remains wore boots like ones Akopov owned but were never identified. There has been no confirmed recovery of Akopov, his vehicle, or the two companions last seen with him. Does anyone have information about Akopov, the 1987 Plymouth Caravelle, or the two men who left his trailer on September 12, 1998?