Emotional search for missing Kansas City man ends in southeast Missouri
Update: Nate Hubert was “in good spirits” as he recovered in a hospital, his family said Monday. Read the latest story here.
Driving home from Cape Girardeau Friday, Scott MacDonald got a call that his best friend, who had been missing for a week, was found safe.
He pulled the car over on the side of the highway and wept.
“You grieve a person when you don’t know where they are or what’s happened to them,” MacDonald said.
Nate Hubert, 32, was found by park rangers with the National Park Service in Shannon County, Missouri, one week after he went missing from Cape Girardeau near the Bootheel in southern Missouri, about 5 hours from Kansas City.
Police said he was found drinking from a stream and had gone without food for days.
It was not clear Sunday where exactly Hubert was found or how he went missing. Police did not answer specific questions this weekend about his disappearance or how he was found. Friends and family who spoke with The Star said they were not ready to speak about some of the details.
Hubert, who works as a data analyst for FEMA, had gone missing while on assignment in the Cape Girardeau area helping with storm relief. Rumors and speculation circulated on social media about what may have happened to him, which added stress to friends and family who knew him, MacDonald said.
According to the Cape Girardeau Police Department, Hubert was last seen by co-workers June 20. His rental car, a 2025 silver Nissan Versa, was observed at 10:36 p.m. June 20 traveling west near the intersection of Missouri highways 72 and 34, police said.
After Hubert’s parents, Ed and Gayle Hubert, called him with the news that Nate was found, MacDonald, overcome with emotion, called everyone he knew from his car parked on the side of the highway. He had spent days helping organize the search for his friend, hanging missing person fliers and publicizing the disappearance on social media.
Nate Hubert
Hubert and MacDonald were roommates at the University of Missouri, where the two quickly became friends. The two shared a passion for music and the outdoors, and both were Eagle Scouts, MacDonald said.
Hubert was a groomsman at MacDonald’s wedding, and the two never lost touch after college.
The stress of losing such a close friend, if only for a week, was incredible, MacDonald said in a phone call Sunday.
“He’s a kind person. He’s incredibly helpful,” MacDonald said. “I mean, he’s the kind of guy who would drop everything to help someone, whether he knew them or not.
“That’s part of what was really motivating me and all of our friends this week—knowing that if it were us—Nate would be doing all of this, and more, to try and help,” MacDonald said.
On Saturday, Hubert’s father Ed Hubert sent a statement to The Star about his son’s safe return. He said he looked forward to being reunited with Hubert over the weekend, and thanked everyone for their help in the search.
“We’re very grateful for all the support and help we’ve experienced this week from friends, colleagues, law enforcement officers and total strangers,” Ed Hubert said in a text. “We’ll never be able to thank them enough.”
Found safe after a week missing
Cape Girardeau is a city situated on the Mississippi River, home to about 40,508 people, according to the 2023 census. The city is situated in a region with flat, fertile land near floodplains and hilly, forested areas close to the Missouri Ozarks.
Shannon County, where Hubert was found, is about 2 hours and 45 minutes from Cape Girardeau. Shannon County is situated within the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, which is a national park. The county is home to several small towns, including Eminence and Winona.
MacDonald said that throughout the process of finding his friend, he learned a lot about how missing persons cases work, and the challenges they face.
The lack of updates from police. The lack of physical evidence. A seemingly endless search for witnesses.
He said it was heartbreaking to check missing persons databases and see so many other names pop up every day.
“It makes you wonder If they have the same kind of support system beyond the official investigators... you wonder if people are helping look for them too,” MacDonald said.
“Each one is a heartbreaking story,” he said. “There’s a family and loved ones behind each one of those names. I wish we could do that for everyone.”
The sobering and haunting experience, MacDonald said, has sparked an interest in how the search for missing persons can be improved. MacDonald said he works in the tech field, working with local and state governments.
“I think I’m going to spend a lot of my time going forward, seeing how I can help those systems... be better connected,” MacDonald said.
But for now, on Sunday morning after the dust settled, MacDonald began to scrub dust off his car.
It had spent days canvassing the back-roads of southern Missouri, where behind the steering wheel MacDonald held onto hope that his friend was still alive and well.
The landscape is beautiful, he said, but more so in less dire circumstances.
He’ll spend this weekend with his wife and daughter, feeling about a thousand pounds lighter.
This story was originally published June 29, 2025 at 2:04 PM.
