Police End Probe After Missing Man Returns to Family

Police said Tuesday they have ended their investigation in the case of a Huntington Beach aerospace executive who was spotted last week in Las Vegas after mysteriously disappearing for more than three months.

“Basically, it’s no longer a police matter,” said Larry Montgomery, the Irvine Police Department investigator who followed hundreds of leads trying to locate Rowland (Rod) Snowdon, 48.

Snowdon apparently left his wife, two adult sons and job as a business director with Parker-Hannifin Corp. in Irvine of his own will Sept. 1, Montgomery said.

Snowdon was depressed over “work problems” and decided to leave the area, Montgomery said. Robert Rau, Snowdon’s boss and president of Parker-Hannifin, was vacationing and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

“From what I gathered (the disappearance) was something not planned,” the police investigator said. “It was like, ‘I’ve had enough and I’m leaving,’ ” Montgomery said.

Snowdon was at home Tuesday and did not want to be bothered, said his wife, Cheryl.

She, along with sons Michael and Rick, had launched a search from Orange County to the Mexican border for Snowdon. Aided by friends, the family members scoured thousands of miles of freeway in Orange County and posted at least 25,000 flyers in English and Spanish bearing Snowdon’s picture.

On the night of Dec. 21 police in Las Vegas making random license-plate checks of vehicles in the parking lot of a low-priced motel found Snowdon living there, police said.