A Fort Bragg solider vanished for a week, but what happened is a mystery

Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, was found in Fayetteville early this morning.

April 2, 2018, 3:16 PM

A Fort Bragg paratrooper who mysteriously vanished a week ago has been found and reunited with his family, police in North Carolina said this morning.

Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, who had been in the Army since 2011 and the 82nd Airborne Division since 2015, was found in nearby Fayetteville early this morning, police there said.

He was not injured and had left on his own accord, Fayetteville police spokesperson Asia Cannon said.

PHOTO: Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, is pictured in an undated handout photo released by his family.
Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, is pictured in an undated handout photo released by his family.

The police department said it was not releasing any more information.

Seeman, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2012, was reported missing on March 25 by a fellow soldier and his car was found at a local Wal-Mart, Fayetteville Police spokesman Sgt. Shawn Strepay said last week.

His wallet and keys were missing, his mother, Jennifer Seeman, said, but his cellphone was in the car.

PHOTO: Fort Bragg soldier Carl Seeman is pictured in an undated handout photo released by the Fayetteville Police Department on April 2, 2018.
Fort Bragg soldier Carl Seeman is pictured in an undated handout photo released by the Fayetteville Police Department on April 2, 2018.

Jennifer Seeman would not discuss how her son went missing or how he was found but she told ABC News today that her "main focus is Carl right now."

"The important thing is he has been found and he is in my care as we speak," she said. "We're still trying to figure out our next move and how we're going to go about it."

Two days after her oldest child was reported missing, Jennifer Seeman drove down from Rochester, New York, with her husband, father and brother to search for him.

"The panic comes and goes," Jennifer Seeman told ABC News last Friday. "I feel like we're not at panic when someone reaches out to me and says, 'I might have seen him here.' But the panic is real. And it hurts."

"The only thing that we have are just leads from people who might have seen him," she added. "Our leads have turned up nothing. Right now we're at a dead end and we're just trying to come up with our next plan. We plan on staying down here as long as we need to until something pops up, until something happens."

PHOTO: Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, who was reported missing March 25, 2018, in this undated photo provided by the family.
Sgt. Carl Seeman, 25, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg, who was reported missing March 25, 2018, in this undated photo provided by the family.

Carl Seeman is a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and was considered "AWOL" since last Monday, Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, told ABC News on March 27.

Buccino said in a statement today, "We are relieved that our Paratrooper has been located and is safe. The most urgent matter - his safety - has been satisfactorily resolved. Once the Paratrooper has returned to his unit, his leadership will look at the totality of the circumstances and determine the proper way forward."

Jennifer Seeman said he always wanted to be in the Army and enlisted his senior year of high school.