Mom: My son has vanished -- Body found on Cape beach as search under way
By O’Ryan Johnson
Boston Herald
Friday, April 20, 2007 - Updated: 06:49 AM EST

A 22-year-old MIT senior on the cusp of graduation and a new job as a downtown currency trader vanished 12 days ago, after speaking with his grandmother and sending e-mails to fellow students, his family said.

Late last night his mother, Sue Kayton, said she fears a body found on Cape Cod could be her son, Daniel Barclay.

 “We don’t know if it’s him,” she said. “No one knows. They said they think it could be him.”

Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe said the body of a young man was discovered on Scusset Beach in Bourne by a woman walking there yesterday afternoon. The man’s identity was under investigation and was not released.

Barclay’s last recorded contact with the world occurred just before midnight April 8 when he e-mailed classmates finalizing details for an upcoming debate and arranging a presentation with his toy design class.

He was supposed to give the presentation that Monday but never showed, Kayton said.

“He’s never vanished where he hasn’t gone to class,” said Kayton, who crossed the country from her San Francisco-area home and moved into a Cambridge hotel room, where she is assisting police with the search for her son.

“He’s spent no money . . . He hasn’t checked his e-mail in 11 days. He hasn’t touched any money,” she said.

Barclay, a political science major, took his wallet and driver’s license from his room at MIT’s Ashdown House, but his mother said he left behind his credit cards, auto club card and auto insurance card. She said he took his cell phone, but not his charger.

She said his cell phone has not been used since the disappearance. She said one unresolved clue is a party in his room April 7 where several people who were not MIT students attended.
  “We’d like to talk to anyone who was there,” his mother said.

Kayton said the family blanketed his favorite haunts in Harvard Square with fliers. She said police told her it’s possible that with graduation nearing, a thesis due, and the upheaval involved in moving into an apartment and starting a new job, Barclay may have become overwhelmed and decided to walk away.

His last conversation with his grandmother was upbeat, Kayton said. He talked about his toy design class, which he said was his favorite and one he took as a way to have fun his last semester at the prestigious school. His mother graduated from MIT in 1978 and his grandfather in 1960.

Barclay has traveled the country with the school’s debate team and has contacts up and down the eastern seaboard and Chicago.