Sterling Heights mom has spent months looking for son

Persian Gulf Navy veteran and Sterling Heights resident Kellie Tolstoy believes somebody knows something about her 26-year-old son who has been missing since Sept. 25.

Drexyll Tolstoy, who attended Warren Mott High School and graduated from Butcher Educational Center, was last seen leaving Black Fish Tattoo on East 32nd Street in New York on Sept. 25. He had been living in New York for the past six years, working as a tattoo artist.

“It is like he vanished into thin air,” said Tolstoy. “There has been no activity on his bank account or any of his social media and he has not used his MetroCard for public transit.

“Something is wrong; he has never disappeared or gone silent like this before.”

Drexyll’s phone has been turned off since that night, he did not show up for work the next day, and his belongings including his medications were left in his apartment. He is not believed to be carrying any identification as he told his mother a few days prior to his disappearance that his wallet had been either lost or stolen.

“He doesn’t have any ID, he doesn’t have any of his meds; I’m hoping for the best but planning for the worst,” said Tolstoy.

There is a $5,000 reward for a tip leading to the whereabouts of Macomb County native Drexyll Tolstoy who has been missing for four months. (PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLIE TOLSTOY)
There is a $5,000 reward for a tip leading to the whereabouts of Macomb County native Drexyll Tolstoy who has been missing for four months.(PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLIE TOLSTOY)

Drexyll is Tolstoy’s only child and since she last spoke to him on the night of Sept. 25 she has been embroiled in a situation every parent fears. Her son is missing, there have been no leads as to his whereabouts, and the disappearance of a young adult is often viewed by law enforcement as possibly being voluntary as opposed to something demanding a sense of urgency as would the disappearance of a young child.

More than 13,000 people were reported missing in New York City last year. While most are found in a timely fashion, hundreds go missing for more than 60 days.

Tolstoy recently returned from a six-day trip to New York with her partner, Tom Campbell, to try and find answers to Drexyll’s disappearance. It is their second trip to the city since Drexyll’s disappearance. They put up posters near Black Fish Tattoo and in the Upper West Side neighborhood where he lived.

“Another thing we did, and it was pretty brutal. I’m not going to lie, we went to the chief medical examiner’s office and I left a sample of my DNA,” said Tolstoy, who has spent the past four months calling morgues in the New York City area.

Tolstoy’s DNA could be used to identify the body of her son should it come into one of the city morgues.

Kellie Tolstoy (right) used plastic wrap from the dollar store to protect flyers about her missing son from the rain.(PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLIE TOLSTOY)
Kellie Tolstoy (right) used plastic wrap from the dollar store to protect flyers about her missing son from the rain.(PHOTO COURTESY OF KELLIE TOLSTOY)

Tolstoy said her Christmas trip to New York was not successful in terms of finding her son, but she did receive help from District 7 New York City Councilman Shaun Abreu, who printed several “missing” flyers to help with the search. Black Fish Tattoo is located in his district. Through speaking with people as she handed out those flyers and as the result of a local television interview, two tips emerged leading Tolstoy to the same address.

“Someone reached out to the television reporter saying they saw someone fitting Drexyll’s description under the stoop at a specific address,” said Tolstoy. “We drove out there and didn’t find him but I had brought some of his favorite Arabic snacks from Michigan and I left those under that stoop just in case.”

That address was just 10 blocks from the apartment he shared with his ex-girlfriend and Tolstoy said a woman who she approached with one of the flyers told her she also saw a man who looked like Drexyll near that same address.

“My ex husband, Drexyll’s dad, lives in New York and just got back in town last night and he is going to keep going by that address and checking,” said Tolstoy.

Meanwhile, Tolstoy is making plans to make a third trip to New York in the coming weeks. She has considered hiring a private detective to assist with the search and would like to try and gather some volunteers who could help post flyers and canvass the neighborhoods he frequented.

“In the beginning, I had a really bad feeling,” said Tolstoy. “My ex husband has a positive outlook; his theory is that Drexyll met someone and she is letting him stay with her while he gets his life together.

“I’m allowing myself to hope that he is going to pop up, but in my heart it is killing me that he might be out there suffering. If we don’t have any luck the next time we go to New York I don’t know what I will do.”

Tolstoy has set up a GoFundMe to assist with funding the search for Drexyll. As of Jan. 7, $8,099 had been raised. To visit the account gofund.me/f4def0e1.