Hospital alerted cops after missing ER doctor John Forsyth skipped shift without notice
Missing Missouri Dr. John Forsyth’s employer says it alerted cops after he skipped his first shift without notice in nearly 15 years, as his sister shared a new heartbreaking post about the frantic search for him.
Mercy Hospital told The Post on Tuesday that Forsyth, a 49-year-old dad of seven, failed to show up to his emergency room post May 21 at its Cassville facility, where he has been employed for well over a decade.
“Dr. Forsyth has never missed a shift without notifying us in the past, so when he failed to arrive for his scheduled shift, and we were unable to reach him, we became concerned and alerted authorities,” the hospital said.
“We invite everyone to join us in praying for his safe return.”
Forsyth has previously been described as a dedicated health professional, but his sister, Tiffany, said he is so much more to her.
Renewing the call for the public to help find Forsyth, his sibling said her world feels like it has been in “sheer chaos” since her beloved brother vanished.
“I’ve often felt like Johnny and I are two sides of the same coin,” she wrote Sunday on a Facebook page dedicated to finding him.
“Our lives have [led] us in very different directions, but in the last couple of years we’ve been bonding over our intense desire to understand the mysteries of the universe, and I’ve treasured those conversations like precious jewels.”
“I rarely meet anyone I can toss around ideas with like he can. Now he’s disappeared, seemingly into thin air. We have so much more to talk about. I’m so afraid he’s just gone,” she said.
What to know about Dr. John Forsyth's mysterious death
Dr. John Forsyth’s body was found by a kayaker in an Arkansas lake — about an hour south of where he was last seen in Cassville, Missouri — with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, the Benton County Sheriff’s Office said in a release.
The 49-year-old doctor was first reported missing on May 21 after he failed to show up for his shift at Mercy Hospital, something that was out of character for the father of seven, according to his loved ones.
The last person believed to have been in contact with John was his new fiancée, whom he texted at 7 a.m.
The doctor got engaged three days before his disappearance and several days after he finalized his divorce from his first wife.
Officials have not shared the location of the wound or whether they believe Forsyth’s death was a suicide.
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“Please don’t let this be how this ends. The hole that will leave in my life will be empty forever. Please help us find him.”
The sister’s pleas come as her other brother, Richard, revealed that Forsyth had texted his fiancee the morning of his disappearance that he would see her “a little bit later.”
Echoing the hospital’s characterization of his brother, Richard told the Daily Beast that it was completely unlike his brother to miss work.
“He wouldn’t miss a shift even if his eyeballs were hanging out of their sockets,” he said.
“It was an immediate red flag.”
The missing man — described as 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds — was wearing a black shirt with blue/gray pants when he was last seen leaving the Cassville Mercy ER Clinic on Sunday morning.
He texted his fiancee at 7 a.m., but within minutes, he stopped responding and was seen walking to the RV where he stayed in the hospital parking lot.
Security footage then showed Forsyth’s Infiniti sedan arriving at the nearby Cassville Aquatic Center before a white SUV pulled up near him.
Later that Sunday, Forsyth’s car was found, unlocked, with his keys, wallet and a passport inside.
Extensive searches of the 90-acre wooded area around where his car was found — which is under a mile from the hospital — turned up no signs of the doctor.
Cassville police said the investigation into Forsyth’s disappearance was ongoing.
