Friday just after midnight, cab driver William James Simon reportedly told his boss he had picked up a passenger and was headed to Raleigh.

Nobody has heard from Simon since then.

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office is asking for help finding the 61-year-old cab driver, and has labeled his disappearance as a "suspicious missing person," according to Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Debbie Tanna.

A passer-by spotted Simon’s L&M Taxi Service vehicle Friday night off Rosser Road in Spring Lake. The car was abandoned, but Simon’s Bible was in the passenger seat.

"We don’t think that he left on his own accord," Tanna said.

Simon was first reported missing Wednesday, when his roommate said he didn’t return home from work.

But Simon’s boss, L&M Taxi Service owner Larry Morrisey, said he spoke to Simon on Thursday night and early Friday morning while Simon was working.

Morrisey said he last contacted Simon at 12:48 a.m. Friday.

"He told me he had picked up a trip and that he was going to Raleigh with the trip," Morrisey said. "I told him I’d talk to him when he gets back. I haven’t talked to him since."

When Simon didn’t return to work Friday evening, Morrisey reported him missing, two days after Simon’s roommate made the initial report.

Because nobody saw Simon between Wednesday and Friday, the Sheriff’s Office is reporting him as missing since Wednesday.

L&M Taxi is a small company, owning four taxis. Drivers communicate with Morrisey via cell phone.

Others in Fayetteville’s taxi community say that whenever something happens to a driver, everyone takes notice.

"We’ve had incidences where cabs have been stolen from drivers at gunpoint. But nothing as drastic as this," said Gary Stone, a dispatcher with Yellow Cab of Fayetteville, one of the city’s largest taxi companies. "It does kind of make you pay a little more attention with what’s going on with your cab drivers out there on the road."

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=289426