He walked everywhere. A developmental disability meant Kent could not drive a car or ride a bike and although he was 42 years old at the time of his disappearance, he had the mental capacity of a 9-year-old. Over the years, local residents saw him wearing Harley-Davidson shirts when he walked from place to place.
Occasionally, drivers stopped to pick him up. Wind or sun, winter or summer, Kent kept walking. On the day he disappeared, he was supposed to be at home before dark so his mother could drive him back to the group home in Fayetteville where he lived and worked during the week.
That day was Sunday, March 10, 2002. Like most weekends, he walked several miles along US 301 to a childhood friend's house in an area across of the Colonial Heights neighborhood close to the Hoke County line. It is a working class neighborhood with trailers and single story brick homes, junked cars, overgrown brush and children's toys abandoned on patches of grass.
There are some bigger homes and several churches where treetops try to form a canopy above winding country roads. Kent visited friends then walked to another house and another one. Police say he was last seen getting into a small car where Brooklyn Circle meets an access road next to US 301.
Then no one saw him again. Debbie Tanna, a spokesperson for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, said Kent's developmental disorder could have clouded his judgment or made it more difficult for him to sense a dangerous situation. Kent was on medication for anxiety at the time.
"Some of the leads we're getting point to some strange ways," she said. Tanna said police searched many areas - including landfills, swamps, fields, forests, brush and bodies of water - with cadaver dogs, divers and on foot. "We have searched every lake I know possible," she said.
Maj. Rick Collins, chief of detectives at the Sheriff's Office, would not give specific locations for any of the searches. "I can't reveal too much because it is a missing persons case, it is an unsolved case at this time," Collins said.
"We have used any resource we've had available and that we see necessary." Kent's case is treated as an open and active missing person case. It is the only case of a missing adult under investigation at the department, Collins said.
Collins said detectives assigned to Jacobs' case have not run into any resistance from residents in the area where Kent was last seen. "We consider any possibility as far as what happened to him," Collins said. Kent's youngest brother, Kelvin, said some of the people Kent visited were drug dealers and career criminals.
Kent grew up in the neighborhood when he was a young boy and made a few friends he returned to see after the family moved a few miles away. Martha said she quarreled with Kent about his friends because she feared they manipulated him and could talk him out of his possessions. "Momma, I'm not a child," he would protest.
Kelvin said the family was aware of Kent's weekend routine - walking into town most Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays - and said Kent was fiercely independent, even refusing rides so he could walk. After Kent disappeared, his family put up a billboard at the corner of McDonald and Parkton Roads near the house where he lived. When Martha noticed people had shot holes in it with a BB gun, she ordered that someone take it down.
It hurt too much to look at, she said. A different billboard currently stands on northbound US 301 directly across from the neighborhood where he was last seen. Magic Media, who owns the billboard, donated it to the family for as long as it takes to find Kent.
Naturally, residents of that neighborhood see Kent's smiling face and hat turned backwards on the billboard and on storefront posters. They also see a $15,000 reward. Kelvin said he suspects between three and 10 people are responsible for Kent's disappearance and this group includes alleged criminals who have been in and out of jail since Kent went missing.
Kelvin said he hears rumors of these inmates looking to profit financially or for leniency who try to bait police from behind bars. So far, none of these alleged deals have lead police in the right direction. Kelvin said since Kent's disappearance, the family has scoured the neighborhood, gone door-to-door and spoken to people, but he found some of them to be uncooperative.
"It is more of an avoidance, like a 'hands off,'" Kelvin said. "I'm sure a lot of illegal activity was taking place. I'm sure a lot of the people that I think are involved might have warrants and might have rap sheets.
There are unsavory characters in the group. They're not willing to cooperate with police and they have a fear of their own that they don't want to get wrapped up in. Even if one of the honest people had relevant information, I think they would have a fear of their own of coming forward.
" Based on rumors he hears, Kelvin said he accepted the possibility that Kent may not be found alive. One is that Kent overdosed on some type of drug or had a negative reaction to something he ingested. "I would imagine that foul play was involved and it was a situation where something got out of control, where something happened to my brother and the people panicked or planned to dispose of him," Kelvin said.
Kent was paid from his job at a group home two days prior to the day he disappeared. Every other payday weekend, his mother cashed his $200 paycheck and handed him $20 for snacks. She said for some reason, she forgot to separate the money that day.
Later, she saw all 10 of the $20 bills from the bank spread across Kent's bed. "He loved his money," Martha said. She reminded herself to separate the bills but she forgot again.
She is convinced that Kent, who was proud of the money he earned, showed it to his friends and that got him the kind of attention he didn't need. Kelvin and Martha both discredit the notion that Kent simply walked away or hitchhiked to some far-off destination. Kelvin said Kent liked to work and was proud of his job where he built wood pallets and cleaned rest stops on I-95.
"He got up every morning for work and never, to my knowledge, did the director of the workshop say they were having behavioral issues with Kent," Kelvin said. "He was a consistently good employee on Fridays he'd look forward to getting money." "He thought he had close friendships but I don't think it was mutual," Kelvin said.
"They would let him hang out but on some level, I wouldn't describe them as true friendships." The area where he was last seen is surrounded by trees and swamps. Garbage tossed from moving cars litters both sides of these country roads.
Under bridges and in ravines are bottles, tires, and half-buried garbage bags. "Maybe it was just wishful thinking that he'd be alright, that he'd been doing it for so long, that he'd been going to that neighborhood for so long and hanging with these guys for so long." Kelvin said.
"It boiled down to the two options when he came home on the weekends: either locking him up at the house or letting him live his life." "To tell you the truth, I just don't know," she said. On the morning Kent went missing, Martha studied the Bible on the living room couch before church.
Kent walked from his room to a framed landing, looked at his mother, said nothing, and walked back to his room. When Kent didn't return home by nightfall that Sunday, Martha called Kent's sister, Jackie, who lived in Washington State. Jackie told her mother to call police immediately.
She said Kent knew better than to be late and she could feel something was very wrong. For the first six months after he disappeared, Martha said she could still see and hear him walk around the house. Sometimes she thought she heard him sneaking out of his bedroom in the middle of the night to get sweet tea from the refrigerator.
"I could hear Kent calling me," she said. "He loved Momma. Lots of times when I'd take him back to the group home, he'd be very angry about something - about something I'd told him to do or that he'd come in late - and I'd tell him, 'Don't you call me.
Don't you dare call me. But not before I'd make it back to the house, the phone would be ringing, and he would say, 'Hey, momma. What are you doing?
'" In time for the fifth anniversary of his disappearance, Jackie Jacobs sought out LaDonna Meredith of missing persons organization, Let's Bring Them Home. Next week Meredith will launch the Safety Matters program - a program geared towards special needs children and their families that is designed to help them recognize dangerous situations. Maj.
Collins of the Sheriff's Office said any program designed to enlighten a person on 'stranger danger' - whether the individual is disabled or not - is a positive thing. As of February, there are 106,245 missing people in the nation, according to the National Crime Information Center. Of them, 49,443 are adults.
To let the nation know Kent was missing, the Jacobs family appeared on the Dr. Phil Show at the end of 2002. Since then, Kent's story has faded from the area's collective memory.
Every year on the anniversary of Kent's disappearance, the Jacobs family - including younger siblings Jackie, Kim, Keith and Kelvin - hold a vigil at the house Kent shared with his mother. Their father, Jack, passed away in 1994 from a heart attack. Martha said about 25 people attended last year's vigil.
There is one set for this Saturday. All over the house are framed photos of Kent surrounded by half-burned candles from previous vigils. Kent's birthday is six days after the day he went missing.
His family said he was looking forward to celebrating it with them and his favorite niece, Savannah. Martha keeps Kent's room just as he left it. There are photos of him at his sister's wedding pinching the groom's cheek, a collection of unopened Kiss action figures under the night stand and a closet stuffed with clothes on hangers, including a NASCAR jacket and a plaid Sunday suit he wore when he was 3 or 4.
One of his bronzed baby shoes sits on a display stand under a group of his baby pictures. On a wall is a certificate of attendance and on the floor beneath it, sits a plant Martha gave to Kent. "If I can keep it alive, I can keep him alive," she said.
"Will I ever give up? No. I will never give up.
I will never give up.
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