“Do you have a sibling? Somebody to help you with the farm?”

“Yes, and no,” I responded after Dad passed away in 2018, leaving me to manage the operation from afar. How could I begin to explain that while my only brother, three and a half years older than me, was out there somewhere, I lived in constant fear of him showing up?

As a kid, Joe tortured our pets and bullied (and bloodied) friends who came over to play. By junior high, he was experimenting with drugs and stealing equipment from our sheds to fund his newfound mode of escape. When Joe left home shortly after high school graduation, his downward spiral continued. Rather than outgrowing the impulsive behaviors that plague many adolescents, Joe’s actions grew more erratic and violent. And throughout it all, he denied any wrongdoing and showed no remorse for hurting others.

For decades, I tracked Joe’s whereabouts online. From Pennsylvania to Florida to Arizona to Idaho, Joe roamed, sometimes traversing the country by car or bus, but most often by hitching a ride with passersby. Every few years, he ventured home to Illinois. He never stayed for long.

Family detective

I became attuned to the “map markers” telling me where Joe was at any given time. I came across him in arrest reports, inmate rosters and mug shots. Bills for recent stays in hospitals and treatment facilities scattered across the country arrived in my mailbox. I remained vigilant, seeking information, admittedly fragmented, that might reveal something about Joe’s state of mind and alert me to the potential danger he might pose to my family.

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Sometimes, months would pass without a word or an online clue. Eventually, I’d walk into my office at the university to find dozens of voice messages left by Joe as well as psychiatrists, social workers, directors of rehabilitation centers and homeless shelters, and law enforcement officers. Pressing play, I listened to Joe’s vicious rants and threats of physical abuse alongside experts’ requests to talk with me about my brother, who had listed me as next of kin.

Over the years, Joe was diagnosed with psychopathy, schizophrenia and bipolar II disorder, a triad estimated to affect less than 1% of the general population. These antisocial personality disorders worsen over time, especially when left untreated. While the knowledge that my brother’s symptoms could be categorized and named provided some comfort, Joe’s refusal to take prescribed medications and the inadequacy of existing resources for addressing his severe psychosis led to a recurring cycle of pain and helplessness experienced by Joe and those caught up in his torment.

The final chapter

On Easter Sunday in 2024, after the busyness of the day had quieted, I searched online as I had so many times before for signs of my sibling. His name, date of birth and physical description popped up almost immediately on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System website. My brother had been found unresponsive in a homeless encampment in Washington state eight months earlier. I called the number provided and began the process of bringing Joe home to Illinois one last time.

On the days when I’m yearning for a sibling to help me manage the farm from near or far, I think about Dad’s big red grain truck parked behind the farmhouse when Joe and I were kids. The driver’s side door proudly proclaimed the present and future of our family operation: The Ryans, Jerry and Joe, Clinton, IL. That script reminds me that there was a time when Joe’s journey was just beginning, and we were filled with the promise of what might be.