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For 25 ag­o­nis­ing days, the fam­i­ly of Or­toire fish­er­man Theodore “Beast” Gan­pat has wait­ed, feared, and prayed for his safe re­turn. The 68-year-old went miss­ing on Ju­ly 23, af­ter leav­ing his home. Since then, the trail has gone cold.

Now, his loved ones are liv­ing not on­ly with grief but with ter­ror, af­ter threats were re­port­ed­ly sent to them on so­cial me­dia by one of the men in­volved in his dis­ap­pear­ance.

Gan­pat, a di­a­bet­ic who has had a toe am­pu­tat­ed and can­not dri­ve or stand for long pe­ri­ods, ac­cord­ing to his fam­i­ly, left his Or­toire home un­der the pre­text of re­triev­ing his van. He was picked up in front of his house by two men, one a me­chan­ic from Agos­ti­ni Vil­lage, Rio Claro, and has not been seen or heard from since.