Ernestine Sawyer said her grandson, Derrick Fluellen, would regularly call her and talk about his work at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal.
Last Saturday was no different.
“He called and tell me ‘grandma, grandma, I’m at work’,” Sawyer said. “I said ‘What time you get off? Call me on your lunch break’.”
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When it came time for his break, Sawyer says he never called back.
It would be later that Sawyer and Fluellen’s friends and family learned about his disappearance off of a boat he was working on in the terminal.
On Wednesday, Fluellen’s loved ones gathered in front of the terminal to remember and make a public plea for answers.
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“I just want to hug my child for the last time,” said his mother, Earlisa Fluellen. “I just want to put my child to rest.”