Scott Swanson
The public is being asked for assistance in locating a 28-year-old Sweet Home man who has been missing since last Sunday, April 23.
Daniel Oberg spoke with his father at about 7:30 a.m. Sunday and has not been heard from since, the father, Kenneth Oberg said Friday.
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office is handling the case after the car Daniel Oberg was driving was found abandoned in the Marcola area.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Oberg may be traveling with one or two other adult males and may have a white pit bull dog with him as well as a younger dog.
Kenneth Oberg said it has been established that Daniel Oberg was in Safeway at 12:43 p.m. Sunday, April 23, “with one kid” and walked out of the store with two other men.
Family members reported Daniel Oberg missing April 25 when they became concerned that he had not returned home.
“This is very unusual,” Kenneth Oberg said. “Usually, he tells everybody where he’s going.”
Daniel Oberg is described as a 28-year-old white male, 6 feet in height and weighing approximately 160 pounds, with medium-length brown hair and a short beard.
He has been known to frequent the Quartzville Recreation Corridor in Linn County.
Kenneth Oberg said he disagrees with police suggestions that his son may be camping, noting that although Daniel had told his mother, Sherry Lacey of Sweet Home he was thinking of going camping, he wasn’t referring to the present. He said his son didn’t like rain.
He said Daniel had purchased a new tent and an Army-style backpack and other supplies.
“He told his mother that he wanted to get camping stuff and wanted to go camping this summer,” Kenneth Oberg said. “All the camping stuff he’s gotten in last two weeks is upstairs in his room.”
Also strange, Kenneth Oberg said, was that the car was found approximately half a mile off Marcola Road near mile marker 13, stuck in the mud on a hillside. Kenneth said it belonged to Daniel’s grandmother, Carol Bennett of Sweet Home, and that his son was careful with the car.
“I told the Sheriff’s (deputies) he did not leave that car down there. He’s going to take really good care of the car, not going to let someone else drive it.”
Daniel Oberg, he said, made money buying and selling items on Craigslist and repairing electronic devices such as computers and smartphones.
“He can put new glass on your phone,” Kenneth Oberg said, adding that Daniel was in the process of selling a Playstation 2 unit to a customer and had agreed to do a little more work on it.
“He told (the customer) he would have it done Monday, by noon,” Kenneth Oberg said Friday. “He’s not used to telling somebody something and not doing it.”
He said that cellphone records indicate that Daniel’s phone had not left the area.
“That phone had not been near Marcola in 60 days.”
Also, he said, the car contained a blanket nobody in the family recognized and Daniel’s Oregon Trail card was lying on the back seat, while a receipt in the center console indicated a purchase of donuts, water, Body Armor vitamin drink and Red Bull at Safeway early Sunday afternoon, April 23.
“He never eats donuts,” Kenneth Oberg said. “He nags me when I buy stuff like that. He’s really into health food.”
He said he and a friend, Mike Terhune, drove “15 miles past Yellowbottom” yelling the missing men’s names and calling the dogs, Misa, a female pit bull about 4 years old, and Cody, her pup, whose face “looks like Beethoven, in the movie.”
“We were yelling random names,” he said. “We wanted to see if the dogs would start barking. No activity at all.”
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone who has seen Daniel Oberg to call (541) 682-4141.