A retired FBI agent has taken up the cause of a missing local man who disappeared more than six years ago, seemingly vanished without a trace.

Adam Kellner, 39, of Stevenson Ranch, was last seen around 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2007, according to his mother, Sherrill Britton.

“It just struck me as, ‘Hey, I want to help this family,’ I’m truly interested in helping if I can,” said Mary Hogan, a retired agent who worked on the Joint Task Force on Terrorism in the Los Angeles office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After more than two and a half decades with the agency, she retired and took classes to become a licensed private investigator a little more than a year ago.

Every year, she picks one case that grabs her interest and works it pro bono. The former agent turned investigator said she’s not doing it for the publicity. She doesn’t even have a website.

She’s just looking to help a fellow family in the community where she lives.

“I remember hearing about it way back when,” she said of the Kellner case.

“I got in touch with Sherrill Britton, the mother, and she was receptive,” she said. “It’s an interesting case and it’s sad that there’s been no leads developed on it.”

Adam Christopher Kellner, is described as a white male who’s 5-feet, 7-inches tall, 165 pounds, brown hair with a bald spot near the back of his head and brown eyes.

He suffers from schizophrenia, but not a form of the disease that causes violent tendencies, Hogan said.

He was not a paranoid schizophrenic, his mother said. But his voices were not violent, they were comforting. They were not something that made him fearful.

“He was not in a psychotic episode when he disappeared,” Britton said. “He was stable.”

It was very unusual for Kellner to take off for a number of reasons, she said.  

“He wouldn’t have wanted his mother to worry. That’s the kind of son he was,” Britton said. “He was also very isolated.”

Kellner moved to the area with his family in 2001. He had jobs in his past, but wasn’t able to hold one down by the time he moved to the SCV.

“He didn’t really interact with people. He didn’t really leave the house,” Britton said.

He had taken off before, but he didnt really leave the house often. He knew how to take the bus. Once in a while he would go down to Richard Rioux Park.

“We had some initial leads that he might be down at Skid Row, and we spent weeks and months down there searching,” Britton said. “But I didn’t give him money. He didn’t have an ID, a driver’s license, he didn’t have any credit cards. Nothing was taken from the house.”

“But no we’ve had nothing since that supposed sighting on Skid Row,” Britton said.  

“After such a long time, you’re thankful that people care enough, it’s been very hard to get any publicity,” she said.

There are two Facebook groups the family has created. Click here and here for more information. 

His family is very concerned and  also asking for the public’s assistance. Any information, please contact the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau, Missing Person’s Detail, at 323-890-5500.

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