Car of missing man found in Valencia

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The detective probing the disappearance of a Woodland Hills man whose car was found abandoned outside a Valencia restaurant reported Friday that she has few clues to suggest what happened.

Christopher “Critter” Clark, 39, went missing July 24.

On that day, he had contact with his family in Reseda and, soon after that, he vanished.

He was described as 5-foot-9, about 175 pounds, with a one-inch scar on the back of his head.

The only thing investigators have to go on is that his car was found in the parking lot near the Black Bear Restaurant several days after he disappeared.

“Why the car was there, we do not know,” Detective Maria Palmer with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit said Friday.

“The car was impounded,” he said, noting she has little to go on and encouraged anyone with information to contact her.

Clark’s brother Caleb reached Friday at his home in Washington state, said a note had reportedly been left in the abandoned car, telling whoever found it could take whatever was left inside it.”

“My sense of it, since he’s got a troubled history, is that it was possibly a suicide note,” he said.

The brothers didn’t have it easy growing up near Lebec, Clark said.

Their father, Curtis Clark, was murdered in June 1, 1997, his body dumped by the killer near Interstate 5 and Frazier Mountain Road.

He had been shot multiple times in the torso by a man described as his lifelong friend who was later arrested for the murder.

Chris Clark settled for a while, his brother said, in Santa Clarita, but ran into trouble with the law and struggled with drug use.

A check of arrest records revealed, he was arrested by deputies of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station on Nov. 23, 2017.

“He pleaded no contest on April 13 to one misdemeanor count of possession of a smoking device,” Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Friday.

Clark was sentenced to 24 months summary probation and other conditions and fines, he said.

Members of Clark’s family, meanwhile, remain optimistic he’ll be found and, according to a Missing Persons flyer circulated in the case, are very concerned for his safety.

“Chris is very kind and gentle, not a thug type, but got in with drug use,” Cathleen Wright Templeman said Friday. “He spent some time in jail and was cleaning up his life.

“By all accounts, many of his Facebook friends were people he had reconnected with.  They said he was happy and hopeful. He had a job and apartment.”

Anyone spotting Clark is urged to call detectives at the Missing Persons Unit can be contacted at 213-996-1800 between 7 a.m. to 4 pm. If you have information, but wish to remain anonymous, please call 1-800-222TIPS (8477) toll free.

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661-287-5527

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