Police find car of missing Belmont man

The car of an elderly Belmont man missing for more than a month was found on Thursday, a Belmont police captain said Friday.

Paul Merrill, 87, was last seen on Sept. 4 at a gas station in McCloud, a Siskiyou County city in the Mt. Shasta area where he had gone on a trip, Belmont police Capt. Patrick Halleran said.

A family member reported Merrill missing after the Belmont man had checked out of a McCloud hotel and hadn’t heard from him since, police said. The California Highway Patrol issued a Silver Alert for Merrill.

He is described as a white man standing about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing around 165 pounds. He was last seen wearing a green jacket, a brown plaid shirt, khaki pants, tan boat shoes, and possibly a blue sailor’s hat, CHP officials said.

Law enforcement agencies searched through Siskiyou County based on two reported sightings of the Belmont man and his car days after he had gone missing, Halleran said.

On Sept. 9, Siskiyou County sheriff’s deputies received a tip of Merrill’s car seen in Redding, a city in Shasta County, and shifted search efforts in that area, the captain said.

Merrill’s car, a silver 1957 Mercedes SL190 convertible, was found on Thursday off a dirt road on a rancher’s 500-acre property in rural Shasta County outside of the community of Burney, according to Halleran.

The Mercedes appeared to have been at the property for some time and found Merrill’s car keys, wallet and his other belongings inside, Halleran said.

Belmont police are continuing the search for Merrill in cooperation with the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office in the area where Merrill’s car was found, according to Halleran.

The current search area is described as heavily wooded, has steep terrain and rough, unimproved roads, Halleran said.

Anyone with information on Merrill’s whereabouts is asked to call the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office at (530) 245-6025.