Engineering Student Dane Elkins Has Been Missing Since December 2020 — Here's What We Know

The family of 21-year-old U.C. Santa Cruz student Dane Elkins is desperate for any information regarding his whereabouts. Elkins vanished in December 2020 after a brief phone conversation with his mother, Deborah Elkins. The distraught Deborah told Dateline (via NBC News) that her son's mental health was shaky at best in the days leading up to his disappearance. Could that have something to do with it?

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, as of December 2024, there are 3,659 people reported missing in the state of California. When someone has been missing for more than a year, law enforcement agencies categorize these as "cold cases," which is why every second that Elkins is missing, he is less likely to be found. What happened to him? Here's the latest update.

The last known location of Elkins was on Interstate 5 and Templin Highway in the area of Castaic, Calif., which is a few hundred miles south of Santa Cruz, though he wasn't attending school at the time. Elkins's family lives in Brentwood, an affluent suburb of Los Angeles made famous by the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. He was about 35 miles northeast from home.

Activity from his cell phone stopped after 8:20 p.m. the night he disappeared, and his abandoned car was found with a flat tire. Los Angeles police discovered his wallet and cell phone inside the vehicle. When Deborah chatted with Elkins earlier that day he said he "wasn’t feeling well ... and told me he needed to find himself." She went on to say, "He seemed to be breaking down and I urged him to come home. I was so close to getting him home, but then he was gone."

Per his phone records, Elkins also called 911 that day. By the time police reached his car, Elkins was nowhere to be found. Deborah said this made no sense and wondered why he would "leave everything behind." He also left behind another digital footprint, which was an incoherent video posted to Snapchat, per NewsNation. In it, he said the government was after him and his family. This sentiment was echoed in his last conversation with Deborah.

Before Elkins went missing, he was a promising student and talented athlete who held 23 national championships as a racquetball player. He also had a black belt in Taekwondo and often did volunteer work alongside his mother. "He used to help me feed the homeless," she said. "Now we’re searching for him among them."

He also had three younger siblings who Deborah says miss him, terribly. "This has really taken a toll on all of us," she said. Despite this, she finds comfort in the scores of people who have donated their time to help their family find Elkins. A Facebook group called "Searching for Dane Elkins" has over 29,000 members and is updated fairly regularly. It urges people not to call the police if they see Dane, as he is afraid of them. He has been spotted in Bakersfield, Mojave, and Oakdale using his real name.

In April 2022, Elkins was apparently back in Santa Cruz where he approached a woman and asked her for money. This occurred in front of the Dolphin Restaurant where he used his brother Cody's name. If anyone sees Elkin, Deborah urges people to message her via the Facebook group or send a text to 562-504-6005.