5 years later, still no word

Five years ago today, David Crawley disappeared into the woods near his sister’s home on Honeypot Lane in Cypress.
He was running scared, and his family still doesn’t know why.
They thought at first he was having a paranoid episode, and suspected it might have been brought on by dabbling in drugs, perhaps methamphetamine.
He thought someone was out to get him, and said as much before he ran away. But they thought it was his imagination.
Now they fear he might have been right.
Sandy Crawley reported her son missing the next day. Someone told her late on April 5 that he had not returned to his home. By April 6, he hadn’t contacted any of his family members, including a brother who had just returned to the area after six years.
Her boys were looking forward to opening some type of business together, their mother said, and they were supposed to get together and toss some ideas around April 6.
She said she still has just a sliver of hope that David might still be alive, but a tremendous belief that more than one person knows what happened to him. She’s hoping that at least one will come forward with the facts.
If he’s dead, Crawley said she’s prepared to accept that truth and move on with her life.
It’s the not knowing that brings her a new measure of pain as each anniversary rolls around.
“I don’t even know anymore what to think, but I pray that someone will say something, so I can finally know what happened to him,” Crawley said. “It would give me a little bit of closure. I know someone has information that could break this case, and I ask those who know to think about it this way — what if your son or daughter or mother or father disappeared without a trace? How would you deal with that?” 
She is trusting that someone’s conscious will eventually get to them.
“I believe that there’s somebody decent out there who knows but is hesitating to come forward,” she said. “Maybe if they think about it like that, their basic nature will overcome whatever’s keeping them from sharing what they know. I’m begging now. Please do the right thing. Shed some light on this for me. Don’t let me go through the rest of my life not knowing.”
Crawley said her fears began to escalate when Mother’s Day rolled around a few weeks after her son’s disappearance.
She knew something was very wrong at that point; even if he’d gone into hiding, he’d never let that red letter day pass without making contact with her somehow. She sat by a silent phone that entire day, her fears mounting as the hours passed and day turned to night.
“We saw each other every three or four days at least, and on Mother’s Day he’d always bring me a card and usually a potted plant, because he knew how much I like them,” Crawley said. “He’d hang out with me for part of the day, barbecuing outside or something. He and I were very connected. He was always helping me with things in the house or the yard.”
She said their frequent visits were such a routine that he got upset over not seeing her for a whole week, when car trouble kept her homebound.
She thinks about him especially at this time of year, not just because it’s when he disappeared, but also because he loved the spring.
“He loved driving around in the rain, and he’d love this weather that we’re having right now,” she said. “He loved seeing the flowers bloom, and I imagine that he’d be doing a lot of hunting and fishing right now, if he were still with me,” she said.
She is asking anyone with information about his disappearance to either call CrimeStoppers anonymously at 526-5000, or to get in touch with Joey Rabon at the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office. Rabon can be reached at 482-9624.