A 54-year-old South Tampa man has been missing for days after his release from Hillsborough County Jail, and his family says the search has been complicated by suspicious phone calls demanding money and by unusual financial activity on his accounts while he was locked up. David May was last known to be in the 1200 block of Orient Road on August 20, according to police, just a day after he walked out of custody.
May was arrested for trespassing at a downtown Tampa hotel on August 16 and released from Hillsborough County Jail on August 19, according to FOX 13 Tampa Bay. His family reported him missing the very next day, on August 20, after he never returned home. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office runs two main detention facilities in the Tampa area — the Orient Road Jail and the Falkenburg Road Jail — and May was booked at Falkenburg Road before his release, which helps explain why his last known sighting near Orient Road struck his family as such a troubling clue.
May’s sister, Elizabeth Kieffer, said the family just wants to know he’s okay. “We just want you to be safe,” Kieffer said, according to the station’s report, adding that her brother should not be ashamed or scared, and that the family only wants to help him. May is described as a white male, approximately 6 feet 2 inches tall and 225 pounds, bald, and possibly sporting a gray beard. Kieffer has said May has faced mental health challenges this year, according to the family.
Suspicious Calls and Unexplained Withdrawals
While May was still jailed, his family noticed unusual financial transactions coming from his accounts — activity they say he did not make himself. Shelley Croft, a licensed private investigator with the volunteer group We Are The Essentials, said financial transactions occurred that were not done by May, per the same account. The family also received a suspicious call requesting money for a monitoring device, and separately found a stranger’s belongings and packages left at May’s South Tampa home…