News

CDC scientist goes missing after leaving work sick

A nationwide search is underway for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who vanished nearly two weeks ago after leaving the agency’s Atlanta headquarters because he felt sick.

Timothy Jerrell Cunningham — a commander with the US Public Health Service who has responded to Superstorm Sandy, along with the Zika and Ebola outbreaks — reported to work on Feb. 12, but left because he said he wasn’t feeling well.

But family said they know something was amiss three days before the 35-year-old Harvard graduate disappeared.

“There were some exchanges via phone as well as text that alerted me to be concerned about our son,” his father, Terrell Cunningham, told NBC News, without specifying what was troubling about the messages.

So when he stopped responding to texts and calls, his parents drove from Maryland to Atlanta to find their son’s phone, wallet, keys and car and his dog, Beau, alone at home.





“Tim never leaves Beau unattended,” the worried dad said. “He just doesn’t do it.”

Police, family, friends and other volunteers are canvassing the Atlanta area.

Cunningham’s alma mater, Morehouse College, is encouraging alumni across the country to look for the missing scientist. Friends are offering a $20,000 reward for tips to help find him.

Cunningham’s neighbor and college buddy, Joe Carlos, who had plans with Cunningham to attend a Morehouse gala last weekend, called the news “very, very shocking.”

Another college friend, David Calloway, described Cunningham as “the guy you can call to help you move furniture or get together with you at a restaurant at the end of a long day.”

Cunningham is well-known in the Atlanta community. The Atlanta Business Chronicle named him in their “40 under 40” list last year and he received the Outstanding Atlanta award in 2014.





He received his undergrad from Morehouse and two graduate degrees from Harvard.

“We just hope he will just come home safely. None of this makes sense,” his brother, Anterio Cunningham told a Fox 5 Atlanta. “He wouldn’t just evaporate like this and leave his dog alone and have our mother wondering and worrying like this. He wouldn’t.”





Share this: