By Amanda Garrett
Beacon Journal staff writer
MEDINA: The mystery of missing Lafayette Township Trustee Bryon Macron only seemed to deepen Saturday.
About 3 miles of two-lane country roads separate Macron’s township hall office — where authorities said there appeared to be a fight — and Chippewa Lake, where authorities discovered Macron’s black SUV parked.
Where Macron disappeared Friday — in between or someplace else entirely — is unclear, Medina County Sheriff’s Detective James Cartwright said Saturday afternoon.
“We’re considering everything a crime scene,” he said.
Macron, 45, is married and has three daughters. He has been a township trustee since 2010 when he was appointed to fill a vacancy. He has since been re-elected to the part-time job, which serves more than 5,000 people in a once-rural area southwest of Medina that’s increasingly suburban to Akron and Cleveland commuters.
Cartwright on Saturday laid out some of what he’s learned about the events leading up to Macron’s disappearance:
Macron spent Thursday evening at the Winking Lizard in Brunswick at a township association meeting. A colleague and Macron went to a movie afterward and Macron returned to his home on Ivandale Avenue.
Office in shambles
Sometime early Friday, Macron left his home. Cartwright declined to specify when or where Macron may have gone.
But a Lafayette Township employee called the sheriff’s office about 7:30 a.m. Friday after finding Macron’s office at the township hall in shambles.
Someone — either deputies on patrol or a citizen — found Macron’s SUV several hours later parked in a lot off Beachside Boulevard, a narrow lane that runs along the waterfront of Chippewa Lake, made locally famous by a now-defunct amusement park by the same name.
Macron likely wouldn’t be an easy target of crime.
He’s a large man and spent four years in the U.S. Marines, with much of that time on the Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team, known as FAST. The fast-deployment teams can be rapidly deployed around the world, armed and combat-trained.
Macron’s Facebook page Saturday featured a picture of him and his wife, Victoria Macron, against a banner that read: Marine Grunt — No better friend, no worse enemy.
After the Marines, Macron went into a sales career. He started as a store manager with Sterling Jewelers, according to his LinkedIn page, and went on as a national sales representatives for other jewelry makers.
Macron in recent years was also selling drones.
In 2013, he was featured in a Beacon Journal story about law enforcement using drones. At the time, Macron was national sales manager for Seville-based Vista UAS LLC, which gave the Medina County Sheriff’s Office a device to use.
The drone was equipped with a thermal-imaging camera and Sheriff Tom Miller said at the time he hoped to use it to find children or elderly people who go missing.
Miller likely never considered he would be looking for Macron. It was unclear Saturday if the department still had the device or uses it.
Echoes of 1985
Macron isn’t the first public official to go missing in Medina County.
When Hinckley Township Police Chief Mel Wiley disappeared July 28, 1985, newspaper, magazine and television reporters from across the U.S. arrived trying to unravel the mystery.
Wiley left no note. Park rangers discovered his locked Toyota station wagon at Edgewater Park in Cleveland with his clothing, wallet, credit cards and police ID neatly stacked inside.
Some initially thought Wiley drowned. Others suspected foul play. Yet no body ever turned up and there was no evidence of wrongdoing,
Many now believe Wiley — who would be in his late 70s now — just walked away and started a new life under a different name.
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.