Robert Howe Owens III was a 65-year-old male who was last seen in Lahaina, Hawaii, around July 24, 2023, when a friend reportedly saw him in Lahaina Town. Public missing-person information describes him as a White/Caucasian man with gray or partially gray hair and blue eyes, about 5 feet 10 inches tall and approximately 150 pounds. At the time he was reported missing, Robert was unhoused and did not have a documented physical address, a circumstance that can make the ordinary threads of a
person’s daily life harder for investigators and loved ones to trace. His case became tied to the larger tragedy of Lahaina because he was believed to have been in the area when the devastating August 8, 2023 wildfire swept through the town, and public summaries of the case state that no flight records showed him leaving Maui shortly before, during, or after the fire.
The Lahaina wildfire transformed Robert’s disappearance from a local missing-person report into part of one of Maui’s most painful unresolved aftermaths. In the weeks and months after the fire, authorities worked through changing lists of people believed to be missing or unaccounted for, while families, friends, and the wider community waited for answers under extraordinarily difficult conditions. The Maui Police Department later formed a cold case unit connected to the search for those still missing after the fire, and reporting in late 2023 described Robert Owens as among the remaining people still missing from Lahaina. Officials emphasized the human purpose behind the work: to find those still missing, and, if they had died, to identify them and return some measure of certainty to the people who cared about them.
As more victims were identified, the list of people still officially unaccounted for narrowed. By February 13, 2024, the Maui Police Department’s credible list of unaccounted-for or missing individuals following the Lahaina wildfire included only two names: Robert H. Owens and Elmer Lee Stevens. Maui Nui Strong published the same credible-list information and directed anyone with information about a still-unaccounted-for person to contact Maui police, underscoring that Robert’s disappearance remained part of the official public record. Later reporting continued to identify Robert H. Owens as one of the last two names left on the official unaccounted-for list, while the confirmed death toll from the fire had held steady in public reporting.
Robert’s case is especially difficult because the available public record gives only a limited portrait of his life before he vanished. It does not describe a home address, a daily schedule, family statements, or a known destination after July 24, 2023. Instead, the public facts form a stark outline: a 65-year-old man living without stable housing, last seen by someone who knew him in Lahaina Town, with no documented indication that he left Maui around the time of the disaster. In a catastrophe that destroyed neighborhoods, scattered residents, and left many families searching across shelters, hospitals, records, and recovery lists, the absence of a clear paper trail for Robert made the search for him even more fragile.
The case of Robert Howe Owens III remains a story of uncertainty, loss, and the need for dignity in the search for answers. He was last seen on July 24, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii, before the August 8 wildfire devastated the town; he was 65 years old, male, unhoused, and believed to have been in the Lahaina area during the period when the disaster occurred. Public records and reporting indicate that he became one of the final people still listed as unaccounted for after the Lahaina fire, alongside Elmer Lee Stevens. At its heart, the case is the unresolved disappearance of a man whose life intersected with a historic disaster, leaving investigators and the Maui community with a narrow but important set of facts: Robert Owens III was last known to be in Lahaina, there is no public indication that he left Maui around the time of the fire, and his whereabouts remain unknown in the available public information.Last Seen: Jul 24, 2023
