TAMAQUA, Pa. — “Bring guns,” Jesse Farber, a 29-year-old father of two, pleaded in a phone call to his then-girlfriend, Rachel Carroll.
“I’m in a tree. Ten, eleven coyotes are after me, and my phone is gonna die.”
Farber made the phone call on Aug. 11, 2015, in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, and was never heard from again.
He claimed to be on one of two mountains flanking the town. There have been volunteer teams, helicopters, rescue dogs and a widespread search by local authorities in the nearly 10 years since his disappearance, but he has not been found.
Carroll and Farber were in a long-term relationship when he went missing and shared two children. Carroll said he was acting “very off and unusual” in the days leading up to his disappearance. He didn’t show up for work the day prior and stopped answering her calls and texts until he made the call for help.
“He seemed very stressed out,” she said. “He seemed exhausted, depressed. I could tell something was wrong, but he wouldn’t really tell me what was going on.”
Carroll has lived with the unknown for almost a decade.
“Everything has changed from little things all the way to the biggest things like almost your whole outlook on life, basically,” Carroll said. “Everything was normal. We had a normal everyday life and one day that just changed without any kind of warning. Everything changed.”
Carroll reached out to Steve Fischer, a private investigator who primarily focuses on missing persons cases and has located 27 missing individuals since 2023, who officially signed on to help in early May. Fischer said Carroll’s consistent persistence is what drew him to the case.
“She always stayed in touch with me, and to be honest, coming up on 10 years and seeing how persistent she is, I really saw how important this is to her,” he said. “She is not giving up, and not only for herself, but for their kids.”
Fischer secured cellphone tower data that could pinpoint the exact location Farber made his last phone call from, something the search team did not have until that point. Fischer was able to narrow down a search area that his team will focus on moving forward.
“Our plan is to put a specialized team together — that would be specialized ground searchers — because this is a dangerous terrain area with a lot of mine shafts,” he said. “And then bring in a cadaver canine team, utilize underwater ROVs and specialized drone images.”
Carroll also plans to continue her daily search for answers.
“I still do searches for him,” she said. “The last search that I did was May 4, and I plan to have another one in June. We’ve had podcasts, we’ve had billboards, I’ve done interviews, I do searches, social media, anything I can do to basically keep the story out there.”
Fischer is working with the Tamaqua Police Department and said the department has been “extremely helpful” and willing to lend any needed assistance.
Farber’s family members created a GoFundMe to cover travel, equipment rentals, lodging, search supplies and expert services. The family plans to publicly release all financial records related to the effort.
Carroll said Farber was a “great father” to his then 5-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter and doesn’t want her children to have to continue the search for their dad.
“I just want them to be able to heal from this,” she said. “I want answers, of course, for Jesse and for our family, but I also want answers for my children.”
