The Disappearance of Ryan Blagojevic (Maine)

Homelessness, substance use disorder, and mental health challenges create significant barriers in missing persons cases, often causing individuals to fall through the cracks and their families fighting to get their names and stories heard.

Ryan Blagojevic disappeared without a trace in 2013 and his sister Eve continues the search to find him. The circumstances of his life at the time he went missing has made it even more difficult to get answers, but Eve won’t let her brother be forgotten.

Disappearance

It was just after 7 o’clock on Sunday night, March 31, 2013 when a call came in to Portland, Maine Police dispatch. It was a staff member at Milestone Recovery and they were calling to report that a man was being rude to guests and staff and refusing to leave.

Milestone Recovery provides care and services to individuals experiencing substance use disorders, mental illness and homelessness. The man reportedly refusing to leave and disturbing people onsite was 37-year old Ryan Blagojevic, a guest at Milestone Recovery himself.

Portland Officer Brent Abbott responded to 65 India Street on the Portland Peninsula by 7:06 p.m. The call detail report from that night is just a few lines. It states that the shelter staff wanted Ryan to leave for the night but he could return the next day. Ryan was removed from the shelter and asked to move along for the evening. Officer Abbott finished the call by 7:18 p.m.

Where Ryan went next, who he saw or what he did, there’s no record of it. He didn’t return to the shelter the next day, and since that Sunday evening in 2013, no one has seen or heard from him.

Ryan’s Life and Circumstances

Ryan’s sister, Eve Blagojevic, is 14 years younger than Ryan. They come from a family of five kids, all pretty far apart in age, but the whole family was and is still close knit.

“My parents ran an upholstery business out of our family home so they were always there. We didn’t have dad working late or mom working overnights. We were very lucky in that sense,” Eve shared, “They were there to see us off on the bus in the morning and when we got home from school.”

They lived on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, just a stone’s throw away from beautiful beaches and quintessential New England destinations. It was idyllic, fit for a postcard, but looking back on it now Eve can see cracks in the perfect veneer.

Eve began, “There was definitely always like a kind of darkness lingering over my family that I couldn’t understand as a child, but I knew, I always knew something wasn’t right. Today I sit here and like, I realized that my parents were human, just like all of us, but they did suffer from mental health issues and my father was also an alcoholic. I never saw him drink but he did drink during some of the other kids’ childhoods. And the issues were pretty severe.”

She continued, “I hate saying that because I want to honor them. You know, they were good parents. They loved us. We were always fed. We always had a roof over — I am sitting at the family house right now — you know, we were taken care of, but there was mental health issues that were untreated and were eventually passed down to us.”

Her mother and father have passed away now, but Eve said that their home on Cape Cod where she was sitting for the interview, the home that’s been in the family since the 70s, gets to stay in the family. Preserving the memories that the house holds is important to her. Their family home is a place that has always been a soft landing and safe space for all of the kids, no matter what they faced throughout their lives.

The darkness lingering over her family, as Eve referred to it, impacted Ryan from a young age. His experience with substance use disorder started in his early teenage years.

“I have to be honest, I don’t remember a time when Ryan wasn’t drinking. I think he first went into rehab when he was 13, maybe it was 14. I remember maybe I was 4-years old and spending a birthday, we went to see him in the detox or rehab where he was, and I remember my mom being so upset because they wouldn’t let her light the birthday candles on the cake that they let us bring. So he really started struggling young.”

Ryan had the support of his family as he worked through his recovery, but Eve believes there was always something more beneath the surface. She believes it’s possible he may have experienced abuse or other trauma in his life that was never discussed or addressed.

“I don’t think his trauma was ever dealt with,” Eve said, “I think just the addiction side of it was dealt with so he just kept relapsing.”

In the late 2000s, Ryan was living in northern and downeast Maine, carving a life out in the small towns outside of Bangor. He started dating someone and in early 2010, Ryan learned he was going to be a father. His daughter was born that summer.

The profile photo on Ryan’s Facebook page shows him smiling down at his newborn daughter, feeding her with a tiny bottle, so obviously proud of the life he held in his hands. Eve told me that Ryan loved his child – it was undeniable – and it was also undeniable that Ryan was sick. His behavior reflected that. The mother of his child was granted a protection order against him, and Ryan violated it more than once which resulted in jail time.

The following spring, Ryan nearly lost his life. According to reporting in the Bangor Daily News, on May 15, 2011, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department responded to the scene of a car accident on Newberry Neck Road in Surry. First responders found a driverless Jeep Grand Cherokee that had apparently gone off the road and hit a large rock and then a tree head on. After running the SUVs info, police realized that it had been reported stolen. Ryan was found a short time later lying unconscious in someone’s backyard. He had injuries consistent with a car accident. Ryan was transported to the hospital with serious head injuries. He was not expected to survive.

“My mom had his last rites read to him,” Eve explained. “We thought that he was going to pass on and he ended up making it. And we really believed that he was going to have a second chance at life. And then his parental rights were terminated to his daughter…Because of things that he did, you know, it was because of his behavior. You can’t just terminate rights for no reason, but after his rights were terminated, and when he got into that accident, he had bad brain damage and after the rights were terminated, I don’t think he had a drive to get better, you know. All he knew to do was keep drinking.”

Following the accident, Ryan moved back into the family home in Massachusetts, again to the safety and support of his family. However, in the fall of 2012, Ryan’s drinking reached a level that his parents could no longer tolerate in their home. His parents asked him to leave.

That September, Ryan received a settlement payout from injuries he sustained while incarcerated in a Massachusetts jail. So with $6000 or so dollars in his pocket, he moved back to Maine in October of 2012. Although a protection order remained in place, Eve believes Ryan chose Maine because wanted to be close to his daughter and the mother of his child in hopes of reconnecting and mending that relationship.

Ryan first rented a room in Bangor, and then when he was asked to leave, he moved south to Portland and rented another room. Unfortunately, that arrangement didn’t last either. His substance use got in the way of his ability to maintain stable housing, and having run out of money from his settlement check, Ryan became homeless.

There are some shelters and services available to those experiencing homelessness and substance use disorders in the greater Portland area, including Milestone Recovery’s shelter on India Street. It’s a “wet shelter” meaning people can stay at the shelter even if they’re under the influence of alcohol or other substances.

Although Ryan was mostly estranged from his family during this time, his parents routinely heard from him around the first of the month when his social security disability benefits arrived. His parents were his payees and Ryan would call them at the beginning of the month, every month and they would wire him the money or otherwise get him his funds.

On March 31, 2013, as expected, Ryan called his parents to check in about his money. It was the very same night Portland PD responded to Milestone and removed Ryan from the premises, but his family wouldn’t know anything about that incident for weeks.

“My parents talked to him the night that he went missing. He had called them asking for an advance on his social security because it was the 31st of March, and I believe he got his social security on the 2nd. So he had called asking for an advance but my parents told him no, because he was drinking. And I believe they had, not an argument, but they had a talk. And my parents, my dad told him that he will always carry him in his heart but he could no longer carry him on his back,” Eve shared.

“And that was the last time anyone heard from him.”

Ryan Blagojevic’s story continues on Dark Downeast. Press play to hear the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.