What happened to missing Louisiana man Michael McLendon? Search continues nearly four months later

ShareAdd NBC News to GoogleOct. 12, 2026, 4:30 PM EDTBy Veronica Fulton-Mazaika“I’ve known Michael since he was 17,” Rena McLendon told Dateline. She’s been married to Michael’s brother for more than three decades. “So I’ve known Michael for a very, very long time.”

Rena describes her brother-in-law as a caring person with a big heart. “He loved people, and he loved to help people,” she said. Over the years, Michael worked in oil fields and plants in the Deep South. “And then he became disabled, and hurt his back in one of the — his jobs.”

That didn’t stop Michael from helping his loved ones. “He was living with us,” Rena said. “I had a broken foot, so he would help me a lot around the house. He would take care of things that I couldn’t take care of.”

In June 2026, Michael told Rena he wanted to get away for a bit. She says Michael told her he and his wife were going to stay in Pineville, Louisiana, about 45 minutes away from Jena, where he had been staying with Rena and her husband. “This is a really small town,” Rena said. “Everybody likes to know your business. So they just wanted to step away for a little while.”

Then, he vanished. The 51-year-old was last seen on June 20, when he left the Sleep Inn & Suites in Pineville.

Rena says she knew almost immediately that something was wrong when Michael stopped contacting the family. “Michael always stayed in contact with us,” she said. “He never went a day without talking to one of us.”

A press release from the LaSalle Parish Sheriff’s Office (LPSO) states that, “According to his wife, McLendon left the hotel room sometime in the early morning of June 20, 2026, and has not been seen since.”

The LPSO is working with the Pineville Police Department “in a joint effort to locate McLendon,” the release noted.

Dateline spoke with LaSalle Parish Sheriff Lane Windham about Michael’s case. “We started checking his bank records, checking his social media accounts, checking his phone records, and the day that he disappeared, all of that ceased,” he said. “There was no more activity on his phone as far as texting, calling, social media, and his bank account has had no activity on it either.”

Windham told Dateline that about a month after Michael disappeared, landscapers came across his dark green 2004 Ford Expedition in a ravine along a levee next to the Red River in the Alexandria-Pineville area. “They were over there cutting the grass, saw the vehicle, you know, went down to it,” Windham said.

The car wasn’t the only thing found in the ravine. “Found the cellphone outside the vehicle,” Windham said. It was dead. “The screen was cracked. So we don’t know if the screen was cracked before, you know, and he was just using a cracked screen, or when he dropped it, it cracked then.”

Michael’s wallet was inside the car. “That’s when they called the police. Police came over, saw that it was listed as a, uh, vehicle that was associated with a missing person,” Windham said.

Authorities later found security footage showing Michael’s vehicle driving along the levee. “It looked like he backed down the levee or slid down the levee,” Windham told Dateline. “He was trying to go back up it, and the vehicle got stuck.”

Authorities searched the area. “When they found the vehicle, they came in and went, you know, both directions,” Windham said. “Where that levee’s at, it runs the whole length, you know, of the river down there, and it’s thick. The woods are thick.”

Windham says searchers used K9s to cover the area. “I know they went a long way down each side of the levee,” he said. “Didn’t find anything.”

Windham says it’s possible Michael ended up in the river. “I’m not saying this is what happened, but, I mean, he could have conceivably gotten in that water.” Boats “went up and down, you know, just seeing if they saw something on the edges,” he said. “But as far as dragging the river itself, that would be almost impossible.”

Rena is also concerned Michael might be in the river. “This is not like him, just to be gone,” she said. Rena spoke to Dateline on behalf of her husband, who she says is too emotional to discuss his brother’s disappearance. “We just need some kind of closure on the situation.”

Michael McLendonLaSalle Parish Sheriff’s OfficeAs the four-month anniversary of Micheal’s disappearance approaches, Rena told Dateline, “We don’t have very much hope that he’s alive.” Sheriff Windham shares her concern. “If he was still alive, by now he would’ve reached out to someone, or someone would have seen or heard something from him by now.”The LPSO is hoping people will come forward with specific sightings of Michael. “But it’s starting to get harder to do that because — people’s memory,” Windham explained. “We don’t really have a lot of information, which is a shame.”

Rena McLendon has turned to social media to spread the word about Michael’s disappearance. “Trying to get the word out there,” she said. “I had several people help me as well to try to share it.” She hopes the increased attention will encourage anyone with information to come forward.

According to the LaSalle Parish Sheriff’s Office press release, Michael is 5’11” and weighs approximately 160 lbs., although his family believes his weight was much higher than that when he disappeared. He has blond hair, blue eyes, and multiple tattoos.

If you have information about Michael’s whereabouts, please contact the LaSalle Parish Sheriff’s Office at 318-992-2151.

If you have a story to share with Dateline, please submit it here.

ShareAdd NBC News to GoogleVeronica Fulton-MazaikaVeronica Fulton-Mazaika is Supervising Producer for Dateline Digital.