Zelig Williams is a 28 year old male who has been missing since October 3, 2024 from Columbia, South Carolina.
When Zelig left his home, he was carrying professional headshots with him. Zelig is a Broadway dancer who has worked on shows such as ‘Hamilton’ and ‘MJ the Musical’.
Zelig had been living with his mother since the summer and he had been hosting dance workshops. Zelig had two sisters that passed away in a car accident in the early 2000’s. His cousin Mieoki Corbett-Jacobs has said that he was the light of their family. “He told me when he danced, he feels his sisters with him,” his mother Kathy said. ”And he is a awesome dancer, amazing dancer, and that’s what he loved doing, so that keep(s) him going.”
“Zelig, when he walks into a room, you just want to be with him. … He makes you want to be better,” a former student of Zelig’s Caroline Jones said.
She described him as kind, compassionate and vibrant. As a dancer, Caroline said, he was hardworking and determined.
Zelig’s mother Kathy has spoken to the media about the time leading up to his disappearance. She said that she found him awake at 2.30am on the night before he went missing. She said this was out of the ordinary for Zelig. He asked his mother if she was okay before going to bed.
“I told him, yes, I’m OK. And he went back to bed,” Kathy told News Nation.” “The next morning, I sat on my front porch reading my devotions, and Zelig came out. I said ‘Let me see that photo you have in your hand.’ He just looked at me and said something, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. He got in the vehicle, and he left. I didn’t see him anymore.”
Zelig left the home at around 10am.
Shortly after he left home, his friends say they got an automatic emergency notification from his iPhone. According to NBC, the alert indicated that Zelig had been in a car crash. This happened at 10.10am. An iPhone can be programmed to contact emergency services or a list of emergency contacts if an Emergency SOS is triggered. The device can also alert emergency contacts if it detects a hard fall or car crash, according to Apple. They reached out to him but did not hear back.
Zelig’s car was found abandoned but undamaged on October 5, 2024. There was no sign of it being involved in a crash. The car was found in the lot for the Palmetto trail, near Wateree in South Carolina. That location is around 20 miles from his home.
Mieoki told CNN that Zelig may have sought out a spot to go walking, as the family “loves a good walking trail.” She also spoke about how she thought Zelig was not familiar with the area. “(The lot) where the car was parked had only been there a little over a year, we weren’t even familiar with the space,”
The family have revealed that Zelig stopped taking his medication shortly before he disappeared. The medication was for his mental health.
They told the media they were worried that he might be behaving erratically or even could appear in a trance-like state to people looking to help him.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said his deputies “have used every means of manpower and technology that’s available” to try to locate Zelig and is seeking the public’s help.
“We feel confident there’s people out in the community who may know something that could help us and just not realize that they have that last key to the puzzle,” Lott said.
Mieoki believes that Zelig may have met with foul play. “He didn’t wander off. This is definitely a missing persons (case) with suspected foul play. “Our plea and our ask is to pay attention, look at his face on the flyers, on the pictures, he might have facial hair he might not,” she said. “We beg you to please pay attention and bring him home.”
SOURCE LIST
https://www.newsnationnow.com/banfield/broadway-dancer-zelig-williams-last-seen-with-headshots-mom
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/zelig-williams-missing-update/index.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/14/us/zelig-williams-missing-hamilton-update/index.html