Mark Anthony Degner

• Missing Since 02/10/2005
• Missing From Jacksonville, Florida
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Male
• Race White
• Date of Birth 07/13/1992 (32)
• Age 12 years old
• Height and Weight 5'1, 100 - 120 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A light gray zip-up hooded sweatshirt and khaki pants.
• Medical Conditions Mark is classified as developmentally delayed; he has the emotional development of a child three to five years younger than his chronological age. He suffers from bipolar disorder and requires daily medications.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian male. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Mark has a nervous tic; he shrugs his shoulders and blinks his eyes when he is nervous. One of his ears is pierced but he was not wearing an earring at the time of his disappearance.

Details of Disappearance

Mark was disappeared from Paxon Middle School in Jacksonville, Florida on February 10, 2005. He and his best friend, Bryan Hayes, were both special education students at the school. The boys ran out of the building after an argument with a teacher at 1:15 p.m. and disappeared.

Bryan was apparently seen getting into a car outside the school; it is unclear whether Mark was with him at the time. They took no extra clothes, money, or other belongings with them, not even their bookbags or Bryan's coat.

Police believed Bryan and Mark had run away and were still in the local area. They had told friends of their plans to run away; a third boy was planning to go with them but did not. The day before they disappeared, school officials caught them trying to sneak away from the buses after school ended.

Bryan had run away from home before, but he never traveled more than a few miles from home and was never gone for longer than a day. Mark has no history of runaway behavior. Both children were relatively new students at Paxon Middle School and unfamiliar with the area. Mark had moved there from Indiana and Bryan from Port Orange, Florida.

After weeks passed and no one had heard from Bryan or Mark, and in light of the boys' medical problems, authorities announced that they were considered endangered and possibly met with foul play. Their cases remain unsolved and some agencies continue to classify them as runaways.