Two men who said they were family relatives of Rodney E. Goggins… (Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore…)
June 01, 2011|By Liz F. Kay, The Baltimore Sun
Baltimore County police were searching Liberty Reservoir on Wednesday evening after finding a car there that belongs to a city firefighter recruit who was reported missing Tuesday when he failed to show up for training.
Rodney E. Goggins Jr., 20, of Randallstown, last spoke to his mother about 9 p.m. Sunday, said Baltimore Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright. Tracey Goggins said her son asked her to watch his 8-month-old daughter that night, then went to his girlfriend's house in East Baltimore.
She wasn't there, but Goggins talked with his girlfriend's mother, and she saw him leave about midnight, according to Tracey Goggins. He never arrived home, and his mother said calls to his cellphone went directly to voicemail.
His family "found this to be totally uncharacteristic of him," Cartwright said.
Goggins, who is 5 feet 6 and about 150 pounds, drives a black 2000 Buick LeSabre. He has brown eyes, a thin mustache and several tattoos: "family" on one wrist and "first" on the other; a ribbon with the words "established 1991" on his chest; and "Rodney" on one arm and "Tracey" on the other.
Lt. Robert McCullough, a Baltimore County police spokesman, said the Buick was found at the reservoir near the Baltimore and Carroll county lines.
Goggins entered the fire academy in March and was expected to graduate in September, Cartwright said. He graduated from City College in 2009, according to his mother.
"He was very happy about being at the fire academy and making a career out of it," she said. "He's not the type to hang out."
Anyone with information about the recruit was asked to call the Baltimore County police Woodlawn precinct at 410-887-1340 or to call 911.
liz.kay@baltsun.com
