Family, friends and law enforcement officials are still looking for an elderly man with Alzheimer’s disease who drove away from his Aquilla home one week ago.

Richard Parker, 76, suffers from dementia and was having a spell Saturday night when he got in his silver, four-door 2004 Dodge pickup and drove away from his home on Farm-to-Market Road 933, heading south.

He may have turned down another road and gotten lost, said his son, Darrell Parker, who works for Johnson Roofing.

Richard Parker, 76, suffers from dementia and was having a spell Saturday night when he got in his Dodge pickup and drove away from his home.

The company has put up a reward of $1,000 to anyone with information leading to the safe return of Richard Parker.

He is 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 210 pounds. He was last seen wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and black sneakers. The truck he was driving has a silver bed cover. The license plate is 60VNX2.

He is without his medication for diabetes and high blood pressure.

The Hill County Sheriff’s Department has been devoting six deputies per shift to the search.

“We’ve covered just about every road this side of Hill County — from Aquilla to Blum,” Capt. Larry Armstrong said Friday.

At that time, the next step was to have the game warden do a sonar search of Lake Aquilla near the boat ramps to determine if Parker drove into the lake.

“We’ll keep looking until the sheriff looks at us and says it’s time to move on. And he’s not going to do that anytime soon,” Armstrong said.

Anyone with information on Parker’s whereabouts should call the Hill County Sheriff’s Office at 254-582-5313.

Darrell Parker asks that people living near F.M. 933 look around their properties and look for his father and the truck.

Armstrong said it’s hard to speculate on where Richard Parker might have gone because he was not thinking clearly.

“It’s really hard to say what (a person in that condition) is going to do,” he said.

Leaving house

Darrell Parker said last Saturday night his dad was anxious and upset. Darrell’s mother called him and said that his dad was getting in their truck, and Darrell went to stop him.

“A few minutes before that he had already pushed open the gate with the truck and was gone with my mom standing there in the driveway,” Darrell Parker said.

Darrell Parker went after him, he said, traveling all the way to Lake Shore Drive in Waco, but never saw his dad.

He thinks his dad turned off F.M. 933 before Waco. His truck had a full tank of gas.

“There’s still a possibility he could have found a left-hand turn and gone north,” he said.

Darrell Parker’s brothers and sisters were out Friday morning knocking on doors north of Whitney.

Darrell Parker said his father lived in Whitney for years, which is why they’ve blanketed that area.

Johnson Roofing helps

Johnson Roofing employees and Johnson family members have played a big role in the search for Richard Parker.

Darrell Parker said they have covered a lot of ground on 4-wheelers, and they have been distributing fliers and talking to neighbors from Whitney to Hillsboro.

Darrell Parker said friends and family will be out this weekend looking for his dad. Losing a loved one is one thing, Darrell Parker said, but not knowing what happened is something else.

He said the uncertainty is taking its toll on his mom.

“Having no closure at all is mentally taking her out,” he said.

wgragg@wacotrib.com

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