Family says they’ve found Ga. Lyft driver who vanished after agreeing to drive someone 400 miles

CHEROKEE COUNTY, Ga. — The family of a Lyft driver says they’ve found him after not seeing him for more than two weeks.

Leonard John Beiner, 57, worked as a part-time Lyft driver and was in the Ball Ground area of Cherokee County on July 18 when he was scheduled to drive a customer back to Jacksonville, Florida.

Until Friday, that was the last time his family heard from him.

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Family members told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims that a family friend ran into him on Friday night at a hotel along Fulton Industrial Blvd., and they went to go pick him up.

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office says Beiner checked himself into Grady Memorial Hospital on July 22 and walked out the next day, which is the last time he was seen.

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Beiner’s stepson told Mims that he has gone off on his own before, which is why they didn’t report it sooner. He’s been recovering from drug addiction and sometimes isolates himself.

“It’s not abnormal for him to avoid contact with people while he’s relapsing,” stepson Jhaydon Ragsdale said. “What became a concern is the week after when his phone went to the operator line and he was no longer on social media.”

It’s unclear what led up to his disappearance or where he was since then.

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Family fears Ga. Lyft driver who vanished after agreeing to drive passenger nearly 400 miles is dead

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