Nathaniel Holmes had learned to play the bagpipes, and at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in 2017, he had the chance to perform alongside his father. His father, Ben Holmes, remembers that day fondly.
Nathaniel was a shy kid, and at 17 years old, he was struggling to figure out how to finish his schooling. Life at Arvada High School wasn’t working out, so in the fall of 2017 he decided to try homeschooling. But that wouldn’t work out either.
In November 2017 Nathaniel started at Hidden Lakes High School in Westminster, Colorado.
On Monday, December 18, he came home from school lethargic and not acting like himself. When his dad pressed him for what was wrong he admitted he took a Xanax from a friend.
They decided that he should go spend the night with his mom so she could keep an eye on him.
On the morning of December 19, Nathaniel’s mom dropped him off at school, late.
He walked into the school and was nervously trying to get his friend's attention in another classroom. The principal walked up to him and told him to get back to class.
Nathaniel chose to leave school instead and headed over to a nearby park. He called his mom from a stranger’s phone and told her not to pick him up, he had a ride.
Nathaniel was never seen or heard from again.
Where is Nathaniel James Holmes?
Nathaniel Holmes was born on November 5, 2000. He grew up with two older sisters and one younger brother.
When Nathaniel was eight years old, his parents divorced, and all four children remained living with their dad, however, they did visit their mom regularly.
Nathaniel, along with his siblings and father, was able to travel all over with his family, Places including Canada, Mexico, and Scotland. They’ve scuba-dived off the Virgin Islands and gone on a nearly month-long safari in Africa.
Nathaniel loved to play video games, enjoyed hunting and fishing, and was a talented bagpipe musician.
As a teenager, Nathaniel did have some struggles in school. He was a shy and introverted kid, and he didn’t enjoy school at all.
In the fall of 2017, his parents decided to try to enroll him in a homeschooling program. This didn’t work, however, and Nathaniel struggled with the self-motivation needed to do homeschooling.
During this time, Nathaniel, at 17 years old, was in a small fender-bender car accident. Because of this, Nathaniel’s father, Ben, didn’t allow Nathaniel to use the car. Ben also told Nathaniel that he needed to get his grades up and start doing better in school to get the car back.
But Nathaniel continued to struggle.
A friend of Nathaniel’s was going to an alternative school, Hidden Lake High School, in Westminster, Colorado, and after some consideration, Nathaniel’s parents decided to enroll Nathaniel there.
The goal of Hidden Lake High School was to help kids graduate that were struggling to do so.
The class sizes were said to be smaller and they were supposed to be more hands-on.
Nathaniel was on board, especially since he appeared to know some kids already enrolled at the school.
But the transition into the school wasn’t as smooth as everyone had hoped.
After he began at Hidden Lake School, Nathaniel became a little more withdrawn and maybe even a little bit depressed.
THE DISAPPEARANCE.
On December 18, 2017, Nathaniel’s dad picked him up from school. Almost immediately, Ben noticed his son was acting differently. He was lying around, and his dad kept asking him what was wrong. Not only did Ben notice Nathaniel being extremely lethargic, but his actions were so strange for Nathaniel Ben immediately wondered if he had taken something.
And sure enough, after some time of his dad pressing for answers, Nathaniel admitted to having taken a Xanax that he got from someone at school.
Nathaniel said this was the first time he had ever taken anything like this.
Naturally, Ben was very upset and worried. He wasn’t going to be able to keep an eye on Nathaniel that evening and night, so Ben decided to have Nathaniel spend the night with his mother so she could watch him closely.
His father made sure to take away all of his money so that he would be unable to buy anything from his friends at school. His father, Ben, also remembers that Nathaniel seemed a little bit nervous about going back to school, although Ben wasn’t sure why or what the reasons might have been behind that.
When he got to his mom’s that night, she ended up finding a couple more Xanax pills on him and took them away.
The next morning began as usual, with everyone getting up for the day. Nathaniel’s mom was driving him to school that day.
As they left, Nathaniel realized he left some of his schoolwork at his dad’s house, so they had to go there first, which ultimately made them about 20 minutes late for school. When he ran in to get what he needed, he did see his older sister, Hannah, who said that Nathaniel seemed fine, nothing standing out to her as being too far out of the ordinary.
His mom dropped him off at school with the promise that she would be there after school to pick him up. She watched him walk into the school building before she drove off.
Nathaniel went into the school, but he didn’t immediately go to class.
His principal found him outside the door of another classroom, motioning to a friend who was seated in that class. He seemed nervous and anxious to get his friend’s attention, but the principal told Nathaniel to get back to his class.
Nathaniel said it was an emergency and very urgent that he speak to this friend, but the principal told him no, he was not going to get him out of class, and that Nathaniel needed to get where he needed to be.
Nathaniel didn’t go back to class, however. Instead, he left the school and headed to a park next door. While there, he asked a woman if he could borrow her phone. She let him, and he called his mother, leaving her a voicemail. He said that she didn’t need to pick him up and that he was going to go home with one of his dad’s friends.
His mom wasn’t sure about this, however, and she still showed up at the school at the end of the day, but Nathaniel didn’t come out.
She checked with Ben and told him she just wanted to check because Nathaniel said he was going to this other person’s house. They quickly learned that this was a lie.
They checked with the school and found out that Nathaniel had never even made it to class. When Ben pressed them for answers on why he wasn’t notified, the school said it was their policy to call in the evening when they have a better chance of reaching a parent.
THE SEARCH.
His parents and his siblings went to all his friend’s houses looking for him, but no one knew where Nathaniel was.
Authorities, because of Nathaniel’s age, believed him to be a runaway who would return home on his own soon.
But his family kept searching.
They learned about the incident from the principal, about Nathaniel frantically trying to get the attention of a friend, stating it was an emergency. They spoke to this friend who said he had no idea what Nathaniel would have wanted.
As the family pressed on for answers, the school remained uncooperative. They didn’t have any answers. The family was also upset that the school failed to notify them that Nathaniel wasn’t in school that day, as was their policy.
Every single friend of Nathaniel’s that the family spoke to had no idea where Nathaniel could have gone, and why he might have been acting the way he was.
He had taken no personal belongings with him, and he didn’t have a phone or any money.
His family found his iPad and was unable to access it. Nathaniel’s social media wasn’t active, and it was noted that he didn’t have his driver’s license or passport with him.
Nathaniel’s family continued searching for him every day. Ben even drove through many homeless encampments in and around their part of Colorado looking for any sign of his son.
He hangs up posters, speaks to everyone he meets, and some days he even sets up and plays his bagpipes to raise awareness for Nathaniel, who was also a musician.
Sightings would come in of people thinking they saw Nathaniel.
Once, a young man was spotted in Denver with a Tuba. Multiple people noted his resemblance to Nathaniel, but when his family searched the area they didn’t find anyone resembling that description.
Another promising lead came in from California. A young man there had asked a woman to see her phone for a few minutes. While he had her phone, he opened up the Facebook page for Missing Nathaniel, as well as the page for Ben, Nathaniel’s dad. When the woman looked at her phone afterward because she was curious about what the young man had looked up, she was struck by how much the young man looked like Nathaniel.
She called in the tip, and Ben was in that area of California searching within 18 hours but found nothing.
The Westminster Police force is known to be overwhelmed, so Ben took a lot of the searching into his own hands. He worked to raise money and was able to purchase some surveillance equipment and even drones to help search for Nathaniel. He hoped to use private investigators as well.
WESTMINSTER, COLORADO.
Westminster, Colorado is a city on the north side of Denver, Colorado.
Westminster has a population of just over 100,000 residents but sits just 10 miles from Downtown Denver.
Arvada, where Nathaniel and his family lived, sits just adjacent to Westminster, also minutes from downtown, Denver.
Nathaniel was living in Arvada with his father, but the school he was attending, and where he was last seen, was in Westminster, Colorado.
Hidden Lake School is considered an alternative high school, to help kids graduate that are struggling in other schools. Hidden Lake sits right in Westminster, in a fairly busy area. The school is on a busy four-lane highway and is surrounded by small businesses and residential neighborhoods.
It’s probably such a busy area, that no one gave a second glance to a 17-year-old walking through the city.
There are a lot of public transportation options from Westminster to not only downtown Denver but to other areas of the country as well.
And of course, just to the west of the Denver area is the quite vast and expansive Rocky Mountains.
Nathaniel was on foot when he left the school. We know that he borrowed a lady’s phone, but we don’t know where he went from there.
Did someone he knew pick him up? Did he take a bus? Or, did he walk?
And how did he just vanish?
Nathaniel Holmes is described as a Caucasian male, standing 5’9 and weighing around 140 pounds when he was last seen in December 2017.
Nathaniel was 17 years old then, and would today be 22 years old today.
Nathaniel has blonde hair and blue eyes.
He was last known to be wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with the words “Mirage Recovery”, blue jeans, and black sneakers with white soles.
Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of Nathaniel Holmes is asked to contact the Westminster Police Department at 303–658–4360.
There is a reward offered of $50,000 for verifiable information on the whereabouts of Nathaniel Holmes.
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Additional Sources:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/missing/nathanial-holmes/
https://kdvr.com/news/local/where-is-nathaniel-holmes-family-pleads-for-answers/
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