John Rocheleau daily travels the region where his son, Keith Rocheleau, disappeared nearly two years ago.

He drives his missing son’s red 1995 Dodge Dakota along the Brooks County road where his son left the vehicle parked outside his parents’ residence.

John Rocheleau walks past the place where his gold 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck was discovered stuck in a ditch at the time of his son’s disappearance.

He walks along the Withlacoochee River where he believes someone dumped his son’s body in early August 2009.

“I don’t believe in closure,” John Rocheleau says. “But my wife and I would like to know what happened to Keith. We will never recover from the pain of losing him. We will never forget losing a son, but we want to know what happened to him.”

What They Know

In early August 2009, John and wife Rosa were out of town. Keith Allen Rocheleau agreed to check on his parents’ place while they were away.

On approximately Aug. 4, Keith left his Barrett Lane residence in Lowndes County. He reportedly left meat on a counter, as if to thaw for preparation after a short trip. He was also watching his parents’ dog, a dachshund called Little Bit, which Keith left in his Barrett Lane residence. In his red Dodge Dakota, Keith traveled to his parents’ Cooey Road residence in Brooks County.

When John and Rosa returned to their Cooey Road residence in August 2009, they discovered Keith’s Dodge Dakota parked in a side driveway. Keith’s cell phone, baseball cap and glasses were scattered outside around their house.

They found the door to their home unlocked.

John’s gold pickup truck was not in the yard. It had been abandoned, stuck in a ditch, about two and a half miles distance on Cooey Road. The keys hung from the ignition. The windows rolled down.

At their son’s home, they found the dog alive and well, and the meat on the counter, but Keith was gone.

John and Rosa also found a calling card from the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff’s deputies had investigated the gold pickup stuck in a ditch. Authorities traced it to being owned by John Rocheleau.

On Aug. 5, a deputy visited the Cooey Road residence before John and Rosa returned from their trip.

A deputy observed Keith’s red pickup, according to a Brooks County Sheriff’s Office report. Running the truck’s tag number, it came back registered to Keith Rocheleau. The deputy observed a tow rope in the truck’s front passenger seat.

He also noticed the cell phone on the ground near a back step; the baseball cap in the front yard; fresh tire tracks around the residence. Knocking on the back door, “the back door came open,” according to the report.

Deputies searched the residence but noticed nothing disturbed inside.

John and Rosa filed a missing person report for their then-47-year-old middle son. With the incident occurring in Brooks, the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office worked the case. Since Keith lived in Lowndes, the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office also looked into the case. Eventually, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation became involved in the case.

GBI Agent Steven Turner said this week that the agency has no new leads in the Rocheleau case. Anyone with information regarding Keith Rocheleau should call the GBI’s Thomasville office. Turner would not speculate on possible causes for Keith Rocheleau’s disappearance.

John Rocheleau does not believe Keith left town. He believes something horrible happened to his son.

“I think he came over to check on our house and he found somebody there,” John says. “He had a scuffle with them … Keith was very protective of us. He was very protective of family. If Keith was alive today, he would have called us every day.”

Looking for Keith

Keith Allen Rocheleau was born November 1962 in Connecticut. He was John and Rosa Rocheleau’s middle son, younger than oldest son John Michael and older than youngest son Craig. The Rocheleaus also had a daughter, Glenda.

As a boy, Keith loved horses. He developed a lifelong love for the outdoors. He enjoyed hunting and fishing.

In the late 1970s, the Rocheleaus moved to Valdosta to farm. With its woods, South Georgia was a good fit for the teenage Keith. John Rocheleau eventually moved from farming to a job with the Georgia Department of Corrections. He worked there 22 years. Meanwhile, Keith graduated from Lowndes High School.

Keith became a crane operator. He worked cranes until a traffic accident injured his neck, leaving Keith on disability. He also took medication for lingering pain with his disability, according to his father.

John says the disability payments should end any speculation that Keith simply left the region without telling anyone.

“Why would he leave when he’s getting a monthly annuity from insurance and Social Security?” John asks. “Keith had it made. Why disappear when he just bought a new house?”

John admits, too, that Keith had a few run-ins with the law on misdemeanors through the years, but he doesn’t think that would have caused him to leave. “I’m not saying Keith was an angel,” John says. “He had some troubles, but a lot of people have some troubles in their lives.”

John says his son was a “free spirit. If Keith had money, everybody had money. He shared it. He was well known by a lot of people and well liked.”

Still, John doesn’t think his son’s generosity caused anyone to follow Keith, hoping to take money from him. John really believes Keith caught someone at the Cooey Road house.

Keith has three sons, Lucas, Ryan, and Levi. He had a good relationship with his ex-wife who has assisted the Rocheleaus in the search for Keith.

“He loved those boys,” John says of Keith’s love for his sons. As the father of three sons himself, John understands that love. It makes it all the more difficult since he and Rosa have apparently outlived all three of their sons.

“Keith’s sons, those grandboys are what I have left,” John says.

A Need To Know

“We’ve lost three sons in the last five years,” John Rocheleau says.

Daughter Glenda Griffin still lives in Valdosta.

But oldest son John Michael died while sanding floors in Key West, Fla.

Last year, youngest son Craig died of lupus.

And they believe Keith is dead, too.

“Michael and Craig, at least we know what happened to them,” John says, “but I don’t know what happened to Keith. We don’t know. You’re not supposed to outlive your children. So we just want to know … Somebody knows what happened to Keith. Somebody knows and if they have a conscience they’ll let us know.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation asks anyone with information in the Keith Allen Rocheleau case to call the GBI’s Thomasville office: (229) 225-4090.