UPDATE Sept. 14, 2020: Dowdell has been found dead. Original article continues below.
A 22-year-old Alabama State University student has been missing since late Tuesday night.
Adam “Belle” Dowdell, a graduate of Montevallo High School who is in his second year at ASU, left his dorm room Tuesday night to go the ATM and hasn’t been seen or heard from since then. His mother, Toya Cohill, is frantic and hasn’t left Montgomery since she first learned of his disappearance.
"I just want my child back,'' Cohill said.
ASU spokesman Ken Mullinax late Saturday night released this statement: ""The Alabama State University Police Department received notification on Wednesday of a male student who was possibly missing. The student is from the Alabaster, Alabama, area and has not been seen since Tuesday afternoon. ASUPD has opened an active, ongoing investigation with help from Central Alabama Crime Stoppers and assistance from surrounding law enforcement agencies."
Alabaster police also on Saturday night posted about Dowdell’s disappearance.
Adam Dowdell, a graduate of Montevallo High School who is in his second year at ASU, has been missing since Sept. 8, 2020. (Contributed)
Cohill said she last spoke with her son Monday, and his siblings spoke with him on Tuesday. Early Wednesday, she started receiving messages from his friends that he had not returned to his dorm room and that no one had heard from him.
She said she’s learned that on Tuesday night that he left with another student saying he was going to get cash from the bank. He was last known to be wearing a white shirt, checkerboard pants and Air Jordan 12 sneakers. Dowdell does not have a car with him at school, and his mother said if he had been planning to be gone long, he would have taken his book bag and a phone charger with him. Both were left behind.
"His phone may get down to 1 or 2 percent but he never lets it go dead,'' she said.
Cohill and other family members rushed to Montgomery Wednesday and have been there since. She said they’ve been unable to track his phone because the location has been turned off and the phone is dead.
Friends and family have been searching and handing out flyers, so far to no avail. "I’ve slept three hours a day,'' Cohill said. She said someone even fired shots at the group on Friday night.
It’s not like Dowdell to disappear. "He always talks to all of us,'' Cohill said. “From my mama to my daughter to my son, somebody’s going to talk to him every day.”
"This is not like him,'' she said. “I can’t even explain the hurt.”
Anyone with information on Dowdell’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or ASU police at 334-229-4400.