Search continues for Kila man who went missing in Kalispell

Friends and family are continuing to search for a Kila man who went missing in Kalispell last week.

Gregory James Wells, 69, was reported missing Dec. 11 by his wife after disappearing during a visit to Kalispell the day prior.  

On the afternoon of Dec. 10, Wells left his home in Kila for a little light shopping in Kalispell before heading to the Gold Bar casino on West Montana Street, according to Mike Burke, a friend of the family aiding in the search effort. 

A bartender who worked at the casino that day recalled that Wells seemed fine. He gambled and had a couple drinks, then told the bartender he was heading home as he left. 

Burke said surveillance video captured Wells leaving the casino at 6:30 p.m. His vehicle was last reported travelling west on U.S. 2 from Kalispell, according to Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino.  

Wells was wearing blue jeans, a gray polo shirt, jean jacket, glasses and a brown/gray ponytail tucked under a Second Amendment hat. Wells has a scar on his right hand, according to the missing person’s flyer distributed since his disappearance.  

He was driving a 2000 slate blue Ford Explorer with factory roof racks and an AM 1050 sticker on the lower left back bumper.  

Wells’s wife reported him missing to the Sheriff’s Office the next day after he failed to return home. 

Wells has never gone missing before and had no reason to leave and stay out of contact, according to Burke.  

Wells’ immediate family described him as old school. He does not carry a phone and typically pays in cash. Heino said that Wells’s lack of a phone or vehicle that is connected with the OnStar network made tracking him more difficult.  

The Sheriff’s Office, working with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, have flown aircraft and drones, spoken with local businesses and inspected disturbances in bodies of water in search of the vehicle.  

“We are working every lead we can,” Heino said.  

Matt Wells, Gregory Wells’s son, called his father’s disappearance shocking.  

“It’s like a movie, it’s kind of surreal,” said Matt Wells, who lives in Washington and drove to Kalispell as soon as he could.   

Wells’s daughter, Joleen Rocks, also lives in Washington and flew to Kalispell to help with the search.  

“This is not something you think will happen to you — ever,” she said.  

Wells is a family man, an Air Force veteran and light-hearted soul, according to his children. The oldest of eight siblings, Wells harkens from a large family, with relatives regularly stopping by his house.  

Rocks described her father as capable and self-sustaining.  

“He can build or fix just about anything,” she said. Wells was a jet mechanic while in uniform and also worked as a steel worker.  

Matt Wells, who usually speaks with his father at least once a week, said the older man was feeling better after recovering from back surgery around two months ago. 

Since Wells’s disappearance, his family and friends have been combing through the city in an attempt to track where his vehicle may have gone. 

Rocks urged anyone in the area to keep their heads up, ask around and distribute missing person flyers.  

Any tips and information regarding the Wells’s whereabouts should be directed to the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office.   

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and junderhill@dailyinterlake.com.