ESCONDIDO -- Like most people, Stan and Thayla Howard aren't sure they believe in fortune tellers.

But when a psychic told the Arizona couple that their missing son had forgotten who he was and started a new life in Escondido, they say they had no choice but to follow the lead.

Jeff Howard was a 40-year-old husband and father in December 2006 when he left his home in Thousand Oaks, leaving no trace. Exhaustive searches by police and family haven't generated a clue about what happened to him.

Increasingly desperate to find out what happened, his parents turned to a New Jersey-based psychic, Nancy Orlen Weber. She told them "energy" from his photograph was telling a story: Jeff Howard was living in or near Escondido and suffering from a rare mental condition called a "dissociative fugue disorder," a type of amnesia.

Dissociative fugue, according to psychiatrists and neurologists, is a rare form of amnesia in which the sufferer loses knowledge of his identity and history.

The condition is precipitated by overwhelming stress, the kind Jeff Howard might have felt in the weeks before he vanished. When he disappeared, Howard was a jobless new father studying for a test to become a mortgage broker.

While his family does not believe he walked away from his life and marriage in Thousand Oaks, statistics say that most missing adults do so knowingly. In California last year, 37,918 adults were reported missing, according to the state's Department of Justice. Of those, at least 30,282 had cut off contact with their families voluntarily, the department says.

Searching

Stan and Thayla Howard returned to Escondido last week, their second visit to the city in recent months. They came to distribute fliers about their son to auto parts stores and tile-setting businesses, since he had the skills to do that kind of work.

In his amnesiac state, Jeff wouldn't remember his past with his wife, Thuc, or his daughter, Jasmine, 2 months old when he disappeared, but he might retain his abilities, according to his mom.

To Thayla Howard, the amnesia theory makes more sense than other possibilities. She said she is certain her son would not have walked out on his family deliberately.

Stan Howard, 68, a former minister who now runs an import business part time, is more skeptical than his wife that his son is in Escondido.

"I'm a little disillusioned in a sense, but when you have no leads, what can you do?" he said.

Checking an Internet printout of addresses, the Howards hit the Napa Auto Parts on Auto Park Way about 11:30 a.m Thursday. After waiting his turn in the busy store, Stan Howard talked to a young female clerk, who looked confused when he handed her a flier and explained.

"Our son is missing, and we believe he might be in the area …" he started.

After hearing the story, the clerk agreed to give the flier to the manager.

"This is what we do, over and over and over," Howard said as he left the store.

The disappearance

On the morning he disappeared, Jeff Howard had a terrible headache, his wife said during a telephone conversation from her home in Thousand Oaks, where she works as a pharmacist and lives with her parents and her daughter.

She said she told him to get some aspirin and went back to sleep. When she awoke at 5 a.m. to Jasmine's crying, her husband was gone, his cell phone left behind.

She said she figured he had gone for coffee or fresh air, adding she is baffled by what became of her husband.

He was the opposite of someone who would ditch his responsibilities and his family, she said. Although he had some stress in his life -- their new baby was wearing them both out, and he had been unemployed for about a year -- he loved his family, was deeply religious and would never try to escape through deliberate disappearance or suicide, she said.

"My husband was a very, very good man," she said, adding that she knew of no enemies or hidden debts.

A cop's view

Alan Hartkop, a Ventura County Sheriff's detective who investigated the disappearance, called the case a true mystery.

"To be honest with you, it's very puzzling," he said. "It's one of those unusual cases where I really don't know what might have happened."

Foul play isn't suspected, he said.

In the first few days he was missing, helicopters searched the area's canyons and ravines for Howard's car as his parents drove all over Ventura and Santa Barbara counties looking for evidence of where a car might have left the road. They found nothing.

Extensive media reports in the area turned up no leads. A forensic search of Howard's computer revealed no plot to leave, Hartkop said.

Howard's car registration has since lapsed, Hartkop said, and he has left no record that he is alive since his disappearance. The car has never been spotted. DNA samples submitted by his parents to a national database haven't matched any unidentified bodies.

Help from psychics

Thayla Howard had long been fascinated by the TV show, "Psychic Detectives," which features oracles who help law enforcement solve cases. In January 2007, she consulted Virginia-based Noreen Renier, who had appeared on the show many times.

Renier told her she thought Jeff Howard was alive and was somewhere northeast of Thousand Oaks. She said she saw him near a "red and white gas station" and a burned-out, then rebuilt, building on a road less traveled.

After driving thousands of miles following Renier's clues, for which the family said they paid $1,000, the Howards found nothing.

A few months ago, Thayla Howard turned to Nancy Orlen Weber, a New Jersey-based psychic also featured on the show.

Weber told her that she sensed Jeff Howard was in Escondido, cut off from his past by his amnesia and working as a laborer. He might attend church as he did in his past life, she reported.

On a trip to Escondido last month, the Howards also used elements of Renier's predictions and looked for red and white gas stations and followed the "less traveled" Old Highway 395. They dropped off fliers at churches.

Holding on to hope

While their two trips to Escondido have turned up nothing, Thayla Howard is convinced the family is on the right track.

"He's (Stan) more skeptical than I am for several reasons," she said. "Number one, I don't want to believe he's dead."

But Weber's theory also makes just as much sense as any alternative, she said. The psychic has made accurate predictions before, she said, and police have found no evidence that her son has died.

Thuc Howard said she has good and bad days, and that her dearest wish is that her husband will come home. While she harbors doubts about the psychic's powers and fears her husband is dead, she said she is holding onto hope.

"I never believed in them at all until my husband was missing," she said. "It just never occurred to me that someday I would have to get help from a psychic, so I have mixed feelings.

"But I do believe that people have special gifts that God gave them, so maybe for someone that's a gift that will help me find my husband."

Contact staff writer Sarah Gordon at (760) 740-3517 or sgordon@nctimes.com.