'Thank You For Finding Dan,' Daughter Says In Last 'Missing Dad' Video Update

CHICAGO—On a beautiful spring day, Dan Davis wanted to be found.

After three-and-a-half months of searching the winter urban landscape for the lost 59-year-old father who disappeared Thanksgiving week, was spotted Monday afternoon by a worker on a smoke break in a drainage ditch area behind a Blue Island trucking company.

“It’s not the news we wanted, but the news we were expecting to a certain degree,” Dan’s daughter, Wendy, said in her last “missing dad update” made Tuesday on TikTok. “We’re shocked but not shocked.”

>>> Body Pulled From Water In Blue Island Identified As Missing Man Dan Davis

Through the "three-and-a-half-month hellscape," Wendy, with the help of her mom, Jenn Barber Masuka, Dan’s former wife, never gave up searching for her father. Thousands of volunteers joined her efforts to locate him so that she, her family and Dan's friends could get closure, yet never giving up hope.

Dan was widely known in Chicago’s music scene for his creative work as the head lighting technician at 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park. Dan had worked at the South Side music venue for over 20 years.

His daughter explained her father was found in an area that hadn’t been checked yet on private property off Wireton Road in a “weird, funky area” by a “steep hill” and “clearly ended up there by accident."

“I got the results from the medical examiner,” Wendy said. “There were no signs of trauma or injuries, broken bones, or signs of foul play.”

Masuka, Wendy's mother, stated on the FIND DAN DAVIS Facebook page that Dan was wearing his distinctive Harley-Davidson jacket and the same outfit, including the Indiana University hooded sweatshirt that he was wearing when he went missing. His wallet, ID and credit/debit were on him, plus a small amount of cash. Dan did not have his phone. They were told by police that Dan had been there for several months.

“We don’t know who found him,” Masuka wrote of the worker who spotted him, “but we hope they are okay and understand the enormity of what they’ve done for us all."

Wendy said she was standing in line to buy bubble tea in Chinatown when she got a call from a detective around 3:30 p.m. Monday, saying, “Hey, we found him.”

“Here’s this gorgeously beautiful day for mid-March in Chicago,” she said. “I like to think of it as my dad saying, ‘Here's this gorgeously beautiful day for me to be found.'”

She joked that her father was “chiming in” with thunder on her last missing dad update made during Tuesday's storms.

After finding out that her father's body had been located, she went to go be with her dad’s friend group Monday evening, as they gathered in a garage drinking beer, throwing darts and blowing off bottle rockets.

“I know that’s what he would have wanted,” Wendy said. “He would not want anybody to be sad and in mourning. He’s going to want us to light off a few fireworks in his name.”

Wendy said she and her mother were shocked by the “virality” of her father’s story and how it spread across the globe.

“It’s something we never could have expected, and we never intended,” she continued. “It was never lost on us … every day we woke up even more and more surprised by how many supporters we have across the globe, and every new person who joined our Facebook page. We thought, What is going on? We were so shocked when this was blowing up, how is he getting so much coverage? He's just a guy.”

Wendy said at some point she would be making videos of what worked and what didn’t work when going through a missing person case of a loved one. She thanked their law enforcement officers in Chicago and Blue Island, who worked tirelessly to help them.

“We were so lucky … We trusted them with our lives and my dad’s life, and they never once let us down.”

She also thanked the droves of volunteers and supporters who printed off fliers and sent her photos of them posted in other states or called their community hospitals.

“I’ll never be able to process this,” Wendy said. “Thank you for loving my father as much as I did. Thank you for finding Dan.”