As mother feared, body in ditch was her son's

By REBECCA CATALANELLO, Times Staff Writer
Published November 29, 2007

TAMPA - When he disappeared, his family went looking.

Barbara Del Castillo, 67, checked the Wal-Marts, the restaurants and the shelters for her son. Family members handed out fliers to the homeless.

For five weeks, they searched, on lunch breaks, weekends, before and after work, and all through Thanksgiving.

Gary Fields, 49, was finally found Tuesday, lying in a watery ditch near Al Lopez Park.

"He was just such a gentleman," Del Castillo said Wednesday, after police confirmed the dead man as her second-born child. There were no obvious signs of trauma, and the cause of death has not been determined.

Fields, who suffered from schizophrenia, wandered off from the Springs Water Assisted Living Facility at 1411 E Waters Ave. on Oct. 24.

Without his medication, he was considered missing and endangered, police said.

Del Castillo said her son was patient, gentle and kind. But without his medication, she feared, he could become badly disoriented. She had a sinking feeling the person found Tuesday was her son.

When discovered by an inmate picking up trash, Fields was wearing the same jeans, T-shirt and button-down shirt he had been wearing when he wandered off, Del Castillo said. But a medical examiner told her it appeared he had been cared for prior to his death - his clothes were clean, his belly filled.

That, at least, brings her comfort. She just can't figure it out: Where was he? Why didn't he phone? He knew her number by heart. "It makes no sense."

Last December he wandered away from another facility, and it took only a couple of hours to find him at a Wal-Mart, a place he loved so much. That time, he was waiting for her.

[Last modified November 29, 2007, 02:37:23]