Missing Raleigh man’s vehicle found in Virginia. Police ask public for information.
Raleigh police have found the silver Range Rover of a 39-year-old man who went missing from the Cameron Village area Saturday.
Friends describe William Anderson Banks, better known as Andy, as a happy-go-lucky downtown Raleigh fixture. At 6 feet tall, last seen in blue Patagonia shorts, a gray shirt with a mountain on the front and a pair of flip flops, they believe he would be hard to miss.
Police found Banks’ car in Danville, Virginia, just over the North Carolina border. Banks is still missing and the investigation will continue, police say.
“He was selling his vehicle,” a 911 caller said. “He would never go six or seven hours without responding to me.”
Banks was supposed to meet someone to sell his vehicle at 2 p.m. Saturday in the parking lot on the former K&W Cafeteria at Cameron Village, the caller said. “I can see on his text messages that he last looked at his phone at 1:42 p.m.”
Banks has a friend who lives near Cameron Village. He parked his car there, and went to sell the Range Rover. But he never went back to retrieve his car, the 911 caller said.
“I would describe him as extremely easygoing, who’s always grinning, just a born extrovert,” said Cliff Cash, a friend since age 5. “Almost a Ferris Bueller character. Definitely not somebody to go off the radar.”
A native of the Gastonia area, Banks attended N.C. State University and lived for Wolfpack football.
“He’s got a real football helmet,” said friend James Hamblin. “He’s got Tuffy cans sitting around unopened.”
Banks worked part-time for the census but mainly cobbled together a living through a variety of sources, buying old cars, fixing them up and reselling them, driving them for a while as a lark and parking them wherever he could avoid paying a fee.
“He once bought this early ’70s Cadillac that was N.C. State red and would drive it around Raleigh,” Cash said.
Friends said they fear foul play as they wait for word.
“We hope he’s OK, and we have no reason to believe he’s not at this time,” Hamblin said.
Raleigh police said Banks was last seen Woodburn Road area Saturday afternoon. They ask anybody we has information or who may have seen him to call 911.
This story was originally published September 14, 2020 at 10:34 AM.