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TAMPA, Fla. – The desperate search for a missing South Tampa<\/a> man continues as Tampa police confirm they are still working to determine the 54-year-old\u2019s whereabouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n David May was released from the Hillsborough County<\/a> jail Wednesday, and his family is concerned for his safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n “You got a lot of people that love you,” Elizabeth Kieffer, May\u2019s sister, said. “We just want you to be safe and okay.”<\/p>\n A scam call to start <\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n On Sunday, Aug. 16, online jail records show May was arrested for trespassing at a hotel in downtown Tampa<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Monday evening, Kieffer said her family received a suspicious phone call saying May was incarcerated and needed money for a monitoring device. Recognizing the call as a scam, the family started digging deeper. Kieffer told FOX 13 that\u2019s when they realized May had been arrested for trespassing on Sunday and was being held at the Falkenburg Road Jail.<\/p>\n While May was in jail this week, family members told FOX 13 they found a stranger\u2019s belongings and packages at May\u2019s South Tampa home.\u00a0They said they also noticed unusual financial transactions from May\u2019s accounts that happened while the 54-year-old was still behind bars.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to jail records, May was released on Wednesday, Aug. 19. But he didn\u2019t contact family members, who told FOX 13 May has had mental health challenges this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n “No need to be ashamed. No need to be scared. We love you, and we miss you, and we want to help make you better,” Kieffer said in a direct message to her brother.<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n The Tampa Police Department is investigating the case and sent FOX 13 the following statement:\u00a0<\/p>\n “Tampa police are actively working to determine the current whereabouts of 54-year-old David May after he was reported missing on August 20, 2026. David is a white male, approximately 6\u20192″, 225 pounds, bald, and may still have a gray beard. He was last known to be in the 1200 block of Orient Road on Thursday, but his family has not been able to contact him, and they are concerned for his wellbeing. As detectives work to determine David\u2019s current location, they are also asking that anyone with information that could help us reunite David with his family to please call our non-emergency number at 813-26130 and reference case number 26-492258.”<\/p>\n The investigation by We Are The Essentials <\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n The local nonprofit, We Are The Essentials, launched an investigation and is searching for May.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Absolutely nothing common at all about this case. There\u2019s a lot of twists and turns,” Shelley Croft, a licensed private investigator with the nonprofit, said. “There are some financial transactions that have occurred that we know for sure they were not done by David.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The group had been searching for May\u2019s blue Jeep. According to a Saturday evening update posted on the We Are The Essentials Facebook page, “A citizen in Lakeland reported the jeep was in his neighborhood. Lakeland police went to the jeep and our investigator went to the jeep. The jeep has now been retrieved by family and is no longer in the equation.”<\/p>\n The Source: Story written using interviews with Elizabeth Kieffer and We Are The Essentials.\u00a0<\/p>\n Missing Persons<\/a>Hillsborough County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article TAMPA, Fla. – The desperate search for a missing South Tampa man continues as Tampa police confirm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,629,6888,115,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-379043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-missing-persons","tag-news","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/vlcsnap-2026-08-22-22h12m37s710.png\")
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