Loved ones say they feel “helpless and hopeless” in the search for a missing Warren County man.

“You don’t know what to do. You don’t know where to look,” said Virginia Carr, the mother of Jason Allen Ashley, 31, reported missing May 27, three days after he called her from Pig Willie’s on U.S. 61 North and said he’d be home soon.

Carr said her son was playing pool with friends and that she expected he’d be home later that night.

“It sounded like he would probably make another stop,” she said. “When I asked him where he was going, he said, ‘Mama, I’m not sure. I’ll be home later.”

He sounded “like himself,” Carr said, not in any distress.

On June 11, 19 days after he was last seen and 16 days after he was reported missing, Ashley’s gray 2000 Jeep Cherokee was found off Floweree Road in north Warren County, near the Issaquena County line — three miles from the home he shared with his mother and 6-year-old son, also called Jason.

“His truck was in a place it shouldn’t have been,” said uncle Charles Ashley. “He had a phone. Why didn’t he call somebody?”

Robert Ashley, also an uncle, agreed, “If he would’ve gotten stuck, he would’ve gotten someone to help him get out. He wouldn’t have left it there. I believe somebody killed him.”

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace has said no evidence has been found to suggest foul play.

“We have followed every lead that has been given,” he said.

Carr said her son knew the area “like the back of his hand.”

“Our property joins that property,” she said. “It’s never been his nature to disappear.”

The search effort has included family, friends, Warren County sheriff’s deputies and officials with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. Swamp land in the 12,695-acre Mahannah Wildlife Management Area, near where Ashley’s vehicle was found, was partially drained and searched — and searched again.

Some family members have taken their quest even farther, “to New Orleans and Yazoo — everywhere we think he would go,” said Charles Ashley.

Jason Allen Ashley was employed with Magnolia Marine Transport. He enjoyed hunting, fishing and camping with his father, David Ashley, his mother said.

“He loved the outdoors,” said Carr.

And he loved his son, Robert Ashley said: “He’s crazy about that baby.”

The child is “doing pretty good,” David Ashley said. “Sometimes he cries, wanting his dad. We try to keep his mind off his dad. He’s doing good — all things considered.”

Anyone with information on Ashley is asked to contact the Warren County Sheriff’s Office at 601-636-1761 or Crimestoppers at 601-355-8577 or 866-481-8477.