NIH Scientist Martin Rogers Found Dead

About two weeks after he went missing, police announced an NIH scientist has been found dead in his car.

Martin John Rogers, 54, left his Gaithersburg home around 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 21 to go to work. As he was leaving, he told his wife of 25 years that he was going to a meeting -- but his co-workers said he never showed up to work that morning.

"This is like a bad dream that you read about in the newspaper, and if you tried to pick someone that would wander off like this and disappear, you would never pick my husband," said Kelley Rogers, Martin's wife.

Martin Rogers had worked at the National Institutes of Health for 15 years and specialized in tropical diseases. 

Police said surveillance video captured Martin checking into a hotel in La Valle, Maryland, looking "stressed out." Last week, police received multiple reports of possible sightings along the C&O Canal towpath, including by Edwards Ferry, near Poolesville, Violettes Lock near Darnestown, and as far away as Cumberland.

In a news release late Thursday night, Montgomery County Police announced Rogers' body was found near an abandoned car parked close to MV Smith Road in Allegany County. Police say they believe foul play was not involved.

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