Donald Messier was an avid NASCAR fan and a Vermont native who loved spending time with family and friends.

On October 15, 2006, he vanished and hasn’t been heard from since.

His sister, Amy Currier, remembers saying goodbye to her brother one day before, as she was walking out the door of her Waterbury home. Fifteen years later, she said she finds it hard to believe he’d just walk away from his life, his family and his friends.

“That just was not his nature,” Currier said. “It is extremely out of character.”

Vermont State Police Det. Trooper Isaac Merriam said, on the day before he was last seen, Messier was hanging out with his father, working on his truck. That evening, he went to a friend’s house to watch a NASCAR race before making his way to a party in the town of Waitsfield.

At around 2 a.m., Messier was last seen driving away from the party in his distinctive red Ford F150, decorated with NASCAR numbers. Merriam said police reports from the time indicated Messier wasn’t intoxicated.

“Some say he was in good spirits, some say he was a little bit down,” Merriam said. “We do know there is nothing abnormal about the party based on witness statements. No arguments ensued that we were made aware of that night.”

Currier said she started to worry later that day. He was reported missing on Monday, when he failed failed to show up for work.

“When I got home from work early afternoon on Monday and realized like there was no sign that he’d been at the house that’s when we started making phone calls and trying to track down and figure out where he was,” Currier said.

Merriam said there was no sign of ingoing or outgoing calls on his cell phone after October 15 and no financial withdraws or transactions credit cards or bank accounts.

Currier said Messier was well known in the community.

“My brother was the kind of person that would give you the shirt off his back,” said Currier.

Currier said her brother was going through a divorce when he disappeared,

“It was difficult, you know, we had kind of fallen into depression, but they had done some medication changes and he was seeing a counselor and, you know, kind of seem to have accepted the situation as best he could and was just trying to , ou know, move on and look forward to the future. Put one foot in front of the other.”

Currier said her brother liked to drive around the region as an escape. “That was kind of his therapy,” she said. “He would take certain roads.”

Currier said she’s traveled all of the roads Messier liked to drive, hoping to find a sign of him.

“We traveled them all multiple, multiple times, you know, getting out of vehicles looking over bags just in case he’d had an accident,” said Currier. “Looking deeper taking the time to you know, walk sections of road where you could go off and maybe not be noticed.”

Currier said she just wants to know what happened to her brother.

“At this point, it’s been almost 15 years, so we’re realistic,” she said. “We know that the likelihood of him being found alive is extremely unlikely, but we still just need the answers,” said Currier. “You know, there’s always that piece of you that’s going to be missing.”

Donald Messier is six feet tall, around 260 pounds, and was last seen wearing a plaid black and blue button-up shirt, blue jeans, work boots, and possibly a hat.

If you have any information please contact Vermont State Police Middlesex Barracks.