Missing FEMA Inspector Found Sleeping in a Car Near His Motel

A missing contract inspector for FEMA who had been the subject of an exhaustive search was found sleeping in a rental car Thursday near a North Hills motel where he had been staying, Los Angeles police said.

Robert Francis Fisher, 39, who disappeared 10 days ago, was found before dawn in the car parked near his Sepulveda Boulevard motel. “There are indications Mr. Fisher had been using cocaine in recent days,” Police Lt. Gene Brummell said.

“He was down the street the whole time,” said a relieved but angry Rodney Fisher, 31, who had been going door-to-door searching for his brother.

The older Fisher, an Oakland construction inspector working on a Federal Emergency Management Agency contract checking buildings for earthquake damage, was last seen by colleagues on the night of March 1 as he headed for his room at the Comfort Inn. When he had not been seen or heard from for several days, his brother--also a FEMA contract inspector from Oakland--called the LAPD Missing Persons Unit.

A patrol officer found Robert Fisher about 2:50 a.m. when the officer stopped to talk to some women standing on a street corner near the motel.

“When he asked the girls out there on the corner, they said, ‘Yeah, he’s right over there. We know exactly who you’re talking about.’ They took (the officer) straight to him,” Rodney Fisher said.

“He either was or had been under the influence of coke,” said Detective Raynette Sincosky of the Missing Persons Unit.

When police brought Robert Fisher back to his motel room, his brother asked what had happened.

“He had nothing to say,” Rodney Fisher said. “He just looked at me. He was ashamed.”

Rodney Fisher said he put his brother on the first plane back to Oakland on Thursday morning. But first, he took him to the FEMA contractor’s office to apologize, and to drop off his FEMA-issued cellular phone and portable computer.

Reached in Oakland, Robert Fisher acknowledged that he had been missing. But when asked about the police allegation of alleged cocaine use, he said: “I’d rather get back to you on that.”