A boy gone: Erie police reexamining the 1983 disappearance of 16-year-old Bryan Fisher

Dottie Fisher remembers how much her older brother loved to fish.

She said Bryan Keith Fisher's favorite spot was Erie's South Pier, a popular place for local anglers along the channel connecting Presque Isle Bay and Lake Erie.

Fisher, 16 at the time, was believed to have been heading out to go fishing when he left his family's home in the 500 block of East Second Street on the afternoon of Feb. 23, 1983. He was last seen by one of his sisters at about 3 p.m. that day, Erie police Detective Sgt. Craig Stoker said.

Fisher never came home.

Rumors, tips and reports of possible sightings never panned out for the various Erie police officers who were assigned over the years to look into Fisher's whereabouts after his mother filed a missing persons complaint.

Fisher's parents died, his father in 2001 and his mother in 2007, without ever knowing what happened to their son. His six siblings, most of whom still live in the Erie area, are also left without answers, said Dottie Fisher, the sixth-youngest of the children.

"It's hard; very, very hard. It's hard on all of us. We wish we knew, wish he was back. And it's horrible," she said.

The 41-year search for Fisher, now 58, is a focus for Stoker, the cold-case investigator for the Erie Bureau of Police. The case is the second-oldest of eight missing persons cases that Stoker is working on as part of his duties.

A fateful fishing trip

Fisher's case has traveled far beyond Erie.

His disappearance is among the cases featured on the websites of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, The DoeNetwork, and The Charley Project, among others. Fisher is described on some of the sites as being 5 feet 9 inches tall and 180 pounds at the time of his disappearance, with brown hair and hazel eyes.

Fisher has a scar between the middle and ring fingers of his right hand, a tattoo of a cross on his right arm, and a tattoo of a skull on his upper arm that may have been altered to the image of a rose, according to some of the information posted online.

Fisher was reportedly wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket when he left home on Feb. 23, 1983, according to Stoker.

Dottie Fisher, who was 12 years old when her brother last left home, said she remembers little about the day of his disappearance other than that her parents were talking about it and that they filed a missing persons report with the police.

After the report was filed, police checked places Fisher was known to frequent, including fishing spots, an arcade that was on State Street at the time, and the old grain elevators along the bayfront where Fisher and other kids were known to hang out, Stoker said. A number of Fisher's friends were also interviewed, he said.

Fisher's parents, who owned a restaurant that was on East Avenue, told the Erie Times-News in a story published in November 1983 that some boys had passed along a rumor that someone was out to get Fisher and he left town. Fisher's father said in the article he believed his son left town because somebody would have seen him if he was still in town.

The parents also reported in the article that someone reported seeing Fisher a day or two after he left home, at a grocery store with a person described as a tall, tough-looking character with long hair.

One rumor that Erie police followed up on, according to Stoker, was that Fisher was possibly seen in Corry with a woman. Fisher's mother mentioned that sighting in a follow-up interview with the Erie Times-News that ran in February 1984. The mother also mentioned a rumor that her son was seen in a waiting room at UPMC Hamot a few days after he disappeared.

More recently, Erie police were contacted a few years ago from a person who had seen an artist's rendering of a person whose skeletal remains were found in Indiana, and thought the person might look like Fisher. The remains were eventually determined to be those of someone else, Stoker said.

An ongoing investigation

Among the Erie police officers who would work Fisher's case over the years was Police Chief Dan Spizarny, who was an insurance fraud investigator for the department at the time and worked some cold cases. He said he looked into the case in his spare time, but he and other investigators never made much progress.

Spizarny said the case is being reviewed again by Stoker, and police are looking into a few things that have come up that they are now able to review.

"Every so often we look at it again to see what steps we can take, and we think we have another option we are going to try now," Spizarny said.

He did not reveal what that option is.

Stoker, as part of his ongoing efforts to solve the case, said he has touched base with private investigators who looked into Fisher's disappearance and has recently spoken to members of Fisher's family. Police have Fisher's DNA on file.

Dottie Fisher remembers her brother as fun, who would play with his siblings and do "all the stuff a brother would do."

Dottie Fisher said she believes someone hurt her brother.

She would eventually like to know what happened to him.

"It hurts all of us," she said. "We don't know if he's alive or dead."

Anyone with information that could help police in their investigation into Bryan Keith Fisher's disappearance is asked to contact Erie police Detective Sgt. Craig Stoker at 814-870-1506.

Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNhahn.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie police reexamine 41-year-old disappearance of 16-year-old boy