Manning and Glenna Flohre say it’s very possible Jack suffered a fatal drug overdose, but they find it suspicious that his body hasn’t turned up and they think a crime may have been committed.
“The fact that his body has not shown up somewhere means that something has happened and there has been foul play,” Manning said.
Dayton police said they didn’t find signs of foul play when they looked into Jack’s disappearance.
But police say the case remains an active investigation. Jack is one of the 21 active adult missing persons cases in the city, including 4 from 2023.
Gone … with only a few clues
Jack Flohre’s mom, Glenna, said she last saw her son on Jan. 15, 2023, when he left her East Dayton home with a woman who gave him a ride to West Dayton. He told her he would be right back.
Glenna said her son never returned home, and he did not text or call her back when she tried to reach him.
Glenna, 58, said her son always checked in and answered her texts or calls, no matter what was going on in his life.
She said her son knew she would be consumed with worry, that her mind would go to dark places if he didn’t respond, ever since her daughter — Jack’s sister — died of a drug overdose.
“I know my son would have been home that night,” she said.
Glenna’s daughter, Arica Chambers, died of an overdose in 2010 at the age of 25. Jack was 17 at the time.
Glenna said she reported her son’s disappearance to police, and detectives obtained video footage from a security camera of Jack talking to someone on his cellphone as he walked along Ingram Street in West Dayton, near McCabe and Mallory parks.
Manning and Glenna said they think authorities aren’t taking Jack’s disappearance as seriously as they should because he was a drug user. They wish police would get Jack’s phone and text message records to find out who he was talking to before he disappeared.
“I think he may have scored some drugs, but something happened, like they hurt him or something … and then they had to hide his body,” Glenna said. “Why hasn’t someone found him?”
Dayton police Lt. Mark Ponichtera said right now there is not sufficient evidence to suggest there was foul play in Jack’s disappearance.
“To obtain a search warrant, any law enforcement agency needs probable cause that a crime has occurred, which at this time is not present,” he said.
Dayton police continue to actively investigate this case, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is helping with DNA testing as part of ongoing efforts to locate Jack, Ponichtera said.
“The Dayton Police Department is again seeking the public’s help for any information in this case,” he said.
Glenna said Jack abused painkillers, opiates, fentanyl, Xanax and other drugs, and had told her he overdosed many times. She said he was receiving methadone treatment for opioid addiction.
Jack and Glenna were homeless for a significant stretch of time. Jack’s had a hard life and he’s been sexually assaulted, robbed and attacked on multiple occasions, his mother said.
Jack’s friend Paul Manning said he personally saw Jack overdose twice, including the very first time they hung out. Manning, 66, said he took Jack to the hospital for treatment one time, and the other time medics responded and revived him.
Manning said he fears Jack might have overdosed in the company of people who were not willing to try to get help and save his life. If Jack’s alive, Manning thinks he was abducted and is being held against his will.
Jack had substance abuse and mental health problems, but he was a kind person who wouldn’t hurt anyone, Glenna said.
“To know Jack is to love Jack,” said Glenna, adding that her son has always been a “momma’s boy.”
Glenna and Manning say Jack was meeting someone the day he went missing and that person or group of people must have information about what he was doing or where he was going.
Dayton police received 218 reports of missing adults in 2023, and only four of those cases remain open, including Jack’s case, police department data show.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System says there are 24,180 open missing persons cases in the U.S, including about 418 in Ohio.
About 664,700 people are reported missing every year in the U.S., but most individuals are found alive and well, the organization said.
Data for 2023 has not yet been published, but in 2022 there were 165 missing adults entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) from Butler County, 10 from Champaign County, 37 from Clark County, 33 from Greene County, 30 from Miami County, 203 from Montgomery County and 30 from Warren County, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
Drug overdoses are common in Dayton region. In the past three years, Dayton Fire Department personnel administered Naloxone (Narcan) while providing care to patients on about 2,500 occasions, said Brad French, the department’s assistant chief.
Montgomery County recorded about 292 drug overdose deaths last year, says Public Health — Dayton & Montgomery County.
A chief investigator with the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office told the Dayton Daily News that the office sees roughly 10 to 20 cases each year of people’s bodies being dumped after they overdose on drugs.
Some overdose victims are dropped off at the hospital by people who run off and don’t stick around to provide their information or any details about what happened.
Glenna said she needs to know what happened to her son, even if it just means recovering his body.
“The pain’s so deep, the longer he’s gone,” she said.
Jack is 5 feet, 10 inches, 150 pounds and he has blond hair, blue eyes and tattoos on his fingers that spell out “lost soul.”
Police are asking anyone with information about Jack Flohre’s whereabouts to call 937-333-1352 to speak to a detective, or contact Miami Valley Crime Stoppers at 937-222-STOP (7867).
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