ARIZONA CITY, Ariz. — Monty Reuling was admitted to The River Source, a rehabilitation and detox facility in the small town of Arizona City on Aug. 19. A week later, the 62-year-old man willingly walked away from the facility on foot and wasn't seen again. Now, four days later, his family says he's been found dead in a canal north of the town.
What happened in those four days remains a mystery to his two daughters, Regan Reuling and Brittany Farley. The sisters traveled to Arizona from out of state as soon as they got word that their dad had left the facility.
“He walked out of the facility on foot after having experiencing some paranoia and hallucinations from the withdrawals he was facing, and he felt not safe at the facility, and that people were trying to kill him, and he felt like he needed to leave," Regan Reuling said.
The Pinal County Sheriff's office (PCSO) says they were contacted by The River Source because of his "concerning behavior." They say the facility could not keep him there because he was not under court-ordered rehabilitation, and had sought it on his own.
A short time after he walked away, he was contacted by PCSO, but they say he "declined assistance at that time, which is his right," a PCSO statement says.
Through the help of a private investigator, his family discovered that he had walked into a Dollar General convenience store around 30 minutes after he walked away from the facility. In the video, he is carrying a bag and is fully clothed with his shoes on.
A day later, PCSO says he was entered as a missing person in the missing persons database. They say he did not meet the criteria for a Silver Alert, which alerts the public to a missing or endangered elderly person.
“Because he was 62 and wasn't 65 we weren't able to do that either. So it was just a very frustrating experience," Farley said.
Two more days of searching ensued. Law enforcement and his family members were passing out missing person's fliers in person and on social media. PCSO conducted a fly-over using their helicopter, but they did not locate him.
That was until the afternoon hours of Aug. 30, when his family says they were notified by sheriff's deputies that a body was found in a canal north of Arizona City. They showed up and could see that it was him and he had a debit card with his name on it, according to his daughters.
“It was horrible. We were just shocked, and we were just in disbelief, I think, like we had searched the whole town," Farley said.
PCSO says the Pinal County Medical Examiner will confirm the man’s identity and determine the cause of death. They say there is an active investigation into Reuling's death.
A representative of The River Source tells 12News over the phone they could not comment on Reuling's situation because it would be a violation of HIPPA rules.
“In my eyes, it wasn't even a possibility that he would have been left in that way," Regan Reuling said. "We had assumed that we would hear back from someone and we could go pick him up or do what was necessary to get you know the next steps taken care of. So we were very frustrated.”
His daughters can't help but feel like they could have done more to help their dad.
“We were only just trying to do what was right for him, and finding that out after days of searching, just for it to be that, when we had all this hope, it was just really defeating," Regan Reuling said.
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