Wife receives email before councilman goes missing
WILKES-BARRE (AP) – A northeastern Pennsylvania elected official apparently wrote a five-word email to his wife on Friday, hours after police asked the public for help locating him.
The Citizens’ Voice of Wilkes-Barre report said Linda Urban received the short message from her husband, Stephen Urban, saying he “took a plane. Went fishing.”
Linda Urban told the paper she was not fully convinced the email was written by her husband, and she remains worried about him.
Earlier Friday, police said they received a complaint from Linda Urban that she had not heard from her husband, a member of the Luzerne County Council, since getting an email on Monday. She told police she was not aware of any travel plans he might have had.
The paper said Urban missed a recent set of interviews with candidates for county controller, although his councilman son, Stephen J. Urban, did attend them. The paper said calls to the missing man’s cellphone went straight to voicemail, which was full.
The son, Stephen J. Urban, told the paper he got an email from his father on Tuesday that said his phone was not working. He said his father took fishing poles and a backpack and was probably fishing.
The elder Urban, 60, a Republican-turned-Democrat, began serving a four-year term on the 11-member council in January 2012. He served as a commissioner under a previous form of government from 2000 to 2012.
Police asked anyone with information to call Luzerne County 911 or the Wilkes-Barre Police Department at 570-826-8106.