Nathan Edberg has been missing for more years than the time he and his family had together.

“We’ve lived longer without him than with him. That was a hard milestone to cross,” his mother, Jackie Edberg, said Monday, the day after the 25th anniversary of his disappearance.

Edberg was 21 when he was last seen at a bar in White Bear Lake on April 14, 1999, and his vehicle was found abandoned in Vadnais Heights.

“Our investigators haven’t stopped looking for him,” the Ramsey County sheriff’s office said in a post Monday on Facebook. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension also brought attention to his case on social media on Sunday.

Jackie Edberg said it took her a long time, but she’s come to the difficult conclusion that her oldest child is likely deceased; he would have contacted her if he could.

That his body was never found makes her feel “more than likely he was a victim of a crime,” she said. “… He just seems to have vanished.”

On the night of his disappearance, Edberg’s pickup truck was found in a ditch near Interstates 694 and 35 with its lights off and doors locked. “Nothing was recovered from the scene that appeared out of place — it just appeared as a car in a ditch,” said Miles Kensler, a Ramsey County sheriff’s office crime scene/cold case investigator, on Monday.

Kensler hasn’t been able to find evidence to determine if Edberg met with foul play, if he left on his own, or “if he passed away somehow where we weren’t able to locate him,” he said.

Investigator still asking for tips

There have been no confirmed sightings or attempted communication from Edberg, investigators say.

“This case has always been open and active and we’ve been looking at it,” said Kensler, who’s been assigned to the case for the past eight years. “… I feel like I’m missing that one puzzle piece of information and that once I get it, everything’s going to make sense.”

Kensler is asking anyone, even if they talked to law enforcement previously, or “even if you don’t think it’s an important thing” but it “sticks out in your memory, please contact law enforcement and let us know.” The sheriff’s office can be reached at 651-266-7320.

Related Articles

St. Paul man killed in parents’ Chanhassen garage identified

St. Paul police investigating home break-in, sexual assault by armed man in Mac-Groveland

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty campaigned on change. Some say she’s gone too far.

Bureau of Prisons to close California women’s prison where inmates have been subjected to sex abuse

Trump’s historic hush-money trial gets underway; 1st day ends without any jurors being picked

There was initially a helicopter search, foot searches with a large amount of staff and a canine cadaver search, Kensler said of what happened before he took over the case.

In his time, Kensler said he’s coordinated two canine cadaver searches, conducted two organized visual searches, and carried out two metal detecting searches, but they all came up empty.

His regular drive to work takes him by the area, “so I’m thinking about the case every day,” Kensler said.

Jackie Edberg calls Kensler to check in once a month to see if he has any updates.

“I have children of my own and you look at your kids and you think to yourself, ‘What would you do if you were in that situation?’” Kensler said. “I want to be able to solve this for her.”

Wallet, pager left behind

Edberg was temporarily living with his cousin in St. Paul and stopped by his mom’s house in Vadnais Heights, where he grew up, the day he was last seen.

“I’m very, very grateful that I was able to talk with Nathan, hug him, say, ‘I love you, honey,’” and hear him say it back, Jackie Edberg said.

He went to Decoy’s Grill and Bar at U.S. 61 and Fourth Street in White Bear Lake, which has since closed. Edberg previously worked at the restaurant, so he knew the staff, his mother said.

The last confirmed sighting of Edberg was when he left the bar. Investigators don’t know for certain if Edberg was driving.

“It’s hard to know how the vehicle ended up in the ditch, but two of the tires were flat,” Kensler said. “I imagine the ditch was probably wet, and it was one of those situations where you get in and you can’t get out.”

Edberg’s pager was in his vehicle and Kensler tried to download information from it, but there hadn’t been any pages in the last couple of months before he disappeared — the investigator thinks the pager wasn’t active.

Edberg’s wallet was found at the bar and it appeared he forgot it, Kensler said.

Law enforcement collected fingerprints from the wallet, with the presumption that most of them are Edberg’s, and they’ve run them through an FBI database in the event that authorities came into contact with him since, but they haven’t had a match.

‘God’s will’

When Edberg disappeared, “it was traumatic and trying” for a long time, said Jackie Edberg, who has three other children.

Nathan Edberg is shown in an age-progressed photo produced in 2023. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Time has marched on. Nathan Edberg’s youngest sister, for example, was 8 at the time and is now a 33-year-old veterinarian.

“We don’t have a grave site to go to, we don’t have a conclusion to know exactly how one remembers this anniversary,” Jackie Edberg said. “… I think it took my family a long time to consider the idea that he is deceased because he was a charming, personable, good kid that loved his family. I just don’t think he’d walk away and not contact us.”

He was facing difficult times — his girlfriend broke up with him, he wasn’t working and his parents had separated — but Jackie Edberg doesn’t believe Nathan would have hurt himself. He had an appointment scheduled for the following week with a therapist and was talking about going back to college in the fall, thinking about studying law enforcement.

“The only thing I can do is is realize that this is God’s will and that every life will have adversity,” Jackie Edberg said. “This life is just a path to get to the next life. I have to believe that there’s a plan, God’s plan. … It gives me comfort because if you believe in heaven, if you believe in an afterlife, then I believe I will see and be with my son again.”

Related Articles

St. Paul prepares for Earth Day with a spring cleanup and street sweeping

Charges dismissed against St. Paul man accused of trying to kill ex-wife with poison

Wadena man gets 14 years for killing Maplewood woman, 80, while fleeing Oakdale police

St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie filed for office using wrong address, owes $1,200 in parking, traffic tickets

What ever happened to Twin Cities’ ‘Fishing Hat’ bank robber and his victims? Filmmaker takes deep look