ROBERTA, Ga. — On Monday, searchers ramped up their efforts to find a man who's been missing for a week out of Laurens County.
82-year-old Garland Warren lives in Rentz, and according to his family, he has dementia.
On Monday morning, his family held their largest search party yet with about 50 people splitting into 20 groups to search Crawford County, which is where Warren was last seen.
"All these people have volunteered to come and help. It means a lot. We're just, we're just scared to death for him," Warren's niece, Tina Harrison said.
The search group included family, friends, strangers, and law enforcement from the Laurens County Sheriff's Office, Crawford County Sherriff's Office, Roberta Police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI, who was searching the sky with a plane.
Harrison said they found out about her uncle's dementia about six months ago, but said they never saw any signs of extreme confusion from him.
"Not sure if it was something else wrong, but he- I mean, he has a few moments, but then he's fine," Harrison said.
Roberta Police Chief Ty Matthews said they have a lot of ground to cover.
"Crawford County is a very large county. Approximately 328 square miles. But it's very rural; very densely populated," Matthews said.
The search included people riding around in the woods looking for Warren on four-wheelers.
Someone last spotted Warren last Monday in Roberta at the Frozen Joe's asking for gas station directions.
"We know he got some, some fuel but there's been no other reported sightings on him anywhere so that's why we, we think you know - have a good reason to believe he might still be in Crawford County," Matthews said.
Just in case, Harrison said they've been searching surrounding counties too.
"Every place that he might have went, where he might've went 50 years ago," Harrison said.
The family posted on Facebook that they have a $3,000 reward for information that leads to locating Warren.
Warren was last seen wearing a camouflage shirt and blue jeans.
He was driving a black Toyota Tundra with new fenders on the driver-side front and the passenger-side back. He has a Georgia Southern and Under Armor sticker on his back glass window. His license plate number is BTQ2000.
Garland Warren's truck
He might also have a chihuahua-mix puppy named Smokey with him.
If you have any information, call the Laurens County Sheriff's Office at 478-272-1522.