My family has myself and one brother and one sister. About 10 years ago by parents met a Romanian woman who was 21 at church who had been through pretty bad abuse of every variety you could name. They took her in and she became part of our family being part of every holiday and event we had. She has been a great addition.
My parents texted me on Monday around noon saying she was missing. Now a little pretext she was disabled to the extent she had SSI-D in her 20s. She still worked a part time job or two the entire time i knew her. My Mom had to go pick her up Monday to take her to work at 930 because she was rear ended and the rental car place her insurance company sent her to(Enterprise) refused to let her rent a car without a credit card. She had a debit card but that wouldn’t do.
So my mom texts her on Monday morning she is on her way. Texts when she gets there. No response. My mom goes to the door and a strange guy answers. He says he hasn’t seen her since Saturday night. He has been living their on her permission for two weeks. He last saw her telling him she would be right back on Saturday night and getting into a tan van. My mom tells him that he should stay there and she will file a missing persons report and be back. When her and the police get back he is gone.
A prelude to all this is 3 nights earlier she gets home and strangely her key will turn the deadbolt but it doesnt open it anymore. The complex refuses to do anything about it as a “lockout”. Eventually she calls my parents and they get a locksmith for $400.
Also her ebike she rides a lot is gone. My parents control most of her money besides a prepaid card because she has had lots of stints of homelessness and they keep the money to pay her basic bills. The odds of a runaway approach zero.
The police come to the apartment. Make a cursory 5 minute trip through. Refuse to make any effort to find the roommate who has fled. Refuse to make any effort to interview anyone. There are some other details i am forgetting from shock or laziness.
Suggestions? Top of the list is im calling the detective and recording it(this is not in the state i am licensed to practice law) and at the end threatening to release it to the Wichita news orgs if its a shit show. The police have refused to pull her gps. Which seems very sus. She has no car, no money and no motive to flee. Meanwhile a random dude was found in her apartment no one knows and her deadbolt was broken 3 days earlier. It seems like a slam dunk probable cause gps phone pull to me. But what do i know.
And a morbid and horrible thing to say but i am like 95% sure she is dead or will be before we can find her. The police are totally useless as we all know and I’m beside myself trying to figure out how to give my family closure of any variety. Especially my mom will be probably close to suicidal from this. They were so close. I have no idea what to do or how to help.
I guess I can post this here on the outside chance anyone is in the region. I know a couple are and have a non-zero chance of running in to her if she is still alive.
Hate to say it but with her size, weight and complexion, ICE might have grabbed her. Any way you can track the last location of her cell phone and see if ICE was in the area?
I had my parents go get her laptop from her apartment but it has 6 digit login which I don’t know how to crack. Was hoping for 4 digit that was brute forceable.
I guess if you want to spend the money on the PI, just be prepared for the possibility she just doesn’t want to be found.
My first thought was your own mini detective work, vehicle missing? ID/money/valuables/etc missing? Where she might’ve been last known, etc. Where would she go to get away from everything? Might look there first, all of that may or may not help much but it’ll occupy your time thinking you’re doing something instead of just spending it worrying. could always look through her internet searches for things like “what to do if I wanted to leave it all” kinda thing if there’s a computer still around. (not that it would stop from doing that on a phone but you get the idea)
Anyway if you go file the police report, its possible she eventually triggers the system. Better than nothing.
The good news is adults often just come back in a few days or just don’t want to be found (or just don’t want to talk to certain people atm) versus foul play and the like. Bad news is you may never know and not knowing sucks but we just hope they find her soon of course.
Maybe I wrote this(looking back no i didn’t) but she worked a 6 hour dollar general shift from 10-4 the day she went missing. Runaways don’t normally get in one last glorious shift at a place like that right before running away.
Also I’m not trying to be a dick. Appreciate the input.
sorry for the terrible situation. I think I’d lean in hard on the police, and if they’re being dilatory to go hard to the media? You’ve got a beloved missing young woman, a tampered lock, an inscrutable stranger, a diaper brown van, I don’t think the local TV news would hold out for an eerie albino
idk that’s maybe an overreaction but ten years from now I’d rather be saying “well gosh I really overreacted there” than anything else, especially given your second post and the meds detail. I’m assuming nobody can get into her google account and track activity, but can’t you force Google to do that? or can’t the cops?
other angles that I’m sure you know bc I just googled: Adult Protective Services, neighbor door cams, does the ebike have GPS tracking?, and agree with BJ about looking into local PIs with a very particular set of skills that they’ve acquired over any length of career whatsoever
edit: awesome you already went public, and I totally didn’t think of ICE. Sounds like you’re really on your front foot, good luck Wichita
I really just got on the case today and have been sending out FB messages to everyone who seems relevant on her FB and other socials. I am calling the detective on the case tomorrow and making a case for sending a warrant for phone data/gps to the respective judge, recording it(kansas and oklahoma are one party states) and if he tries to fuck me off telling him i am going to all local media outlets in wichita. I have no idea what else to do. A PI is next i guess but god damn that seems like a minefield of total degenerates. Maybe a local celebrity attorney will knows how to make a stink? The cell gps pings should basically solve the case or close imo. I doubt these were criminal masterminds.
And again to get a warrant for cell data/gps you need probable cause(51%) of criminal activity and the liklihood that the data will be probative(useful). Does anyone here think this isn’t the case? Maybe I’m biased by the cops telling my parents it doesn’t meet that standard seems insane to me.
oof sorry didn’t read OP first before that other post.
ugh, well it’s still possible she’s fine but damn. Police on this vary how much they’ll do based on location, some will look into it and some places they basically won’t give a shit.
E bike missing, well could just be stolen by someone who doesn’t actually have anything to do with it but maybe is there a gps tracker on it? phone too of course. phone/computer/ebike/etc these days can have login tracking and well sometimes an idiot thief doesn’t know about that and pings the internet with it later.
damn, sorry man I don’t know what to say to you that would help because reality is there isn’t really anything but we’re all wishing for the best.
