Marine recruit, 21, mysteriously vanishes in Boston area

Joey Brancato, 21, was last seen in November, police say. (Boston Police Department)

The family of an aspiring Marine who vanished six weeks ago in the Boston area while living with a recruiter says “nothing about it sounds right,” and they claim the recruiter has stopped cooperating with police.

Joey Brancato, 21, was last seen Nov. 18 in Roslindale. His relatives say he was training for the physical exam to join the Marines and was living in the basement of his recruiter’s home.

“I think he really looked up to this guy, thought 'he’s really what I want to be, I want to be a Marine,'” aunt Andrea Walke told WFXT.

The recruiter’s name has not been publicly released, and before that, Brancato was living with his grandmother in nearby Winthrop, according to his family.

Sources told WCVB the Boston Police Department’s homicide unit is monitoring the case, even though police are calling it a missing person one.

“We don’t want to say bad things about a person without evidence, but nothing about this feels right, nothing about it sounds right,” WFXT quoted a family member as saying.

The family also told the station the recruiter is no longer cooperating with investigators. The Naval Criminal Investigative Services has searched and closed his office and police also have unsuccessfully searched for Brancato in woods and ponds near Roslindale.

“We’re not going to stop until we find him, he has many, many people that love and care about him,” Walke told WFXT.

The recruiter has not been named as a person of interest in the case.