In 2016, the teen’s car was abandoned on I-5 near Tumwater with his wallet, cash, and cell phone inside. He hasn’t been seen since.
THURSTON COUNTY, Wash. — A vigil held this month marked a decade since 19-year-old Logan Schiendelman vanished from Thurston County, with his family still desperate for answers and law enforcement renewing efforts to solve the case.
Logan Schiendelman disappeared on May 20, 2016. The day before, his grandmother — the last family member to see him — said he seemed unsettled.
“He was acting a little nervous and he said he had an epiphany of who he was and he needed to work through it,” Ginnie Schiendelman told KING 5 News in 2016.
She said she then left for work that evening, intending to continue the conversation when she returned. She never got the chance.
The following day, Logan Schiendelman’s car was found rolling driverless down I-5.
Inside, detectives found cash, food, his wallet, and his cell phone. Witnesses reported seeing a white man walk away from the car before it drifted into a median.
Another witness described a tall, thin white man seen with a Black man on a separate stretch of I-5 the day before.
“His disappearance is highly suspicious,” said Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders, who attended Tumwater High School at the same time as Schiendelman. “He just was always a really nice kid.”
“He would never just get out of his car and run away from it,” said Mary Ware, Logan Schiendelman’s great aunt, “I knew something was horribly wrong.”
In 2024, Sheriff Sanders assigned a dedicated detective to focus on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases in Thurston County. Logan Schiendelman’s disappearance is one of the cases that will be getting a new look.
At the recent vigil, that detective urged anyone with information to come forward. “If you were interviewed by the sheriff’s office back 9, 10 years ago, expect a phone call,” said Det. George Oplinger. “Sometimes people will remember things down the road and they don’t always come forward, and it’s really important.”
Logan’s great aunt Tina Roberts Crary, who only recently connected with her nephew before his disappearance, urged the public not to reduce him to a statistic.
“He’s just not a face on a poster. He’s not a case number,” she said, “He’s a young man that had a life to look forward to.”
Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, 360-786-5500.
