When someone goes missing, it’s common that their loved ones would notify the police and start searching for their loved one themselves as well, but how long do you search? When months, years and decades go by, eventually the police and the loved ones would stop searching, considering the case an unsolved mystery.
One mystery from 42 years ago has finally been solved, kind of. Police were able to find the woman who went missing, but they still don’t know why she went missing or what her life has been like these past 42 years.
Back in the 1970s, a woman named Flora and a man named Robert both worked at the same hotel. It was called The Concord, and it was a resort at the time. They appeared to be married because Flora and Robert used the same last name, Stevens. It was Robert who reported Flora missing to the police.
One day, Robert drove Flora to a hospital at a nearby town for an appointment. When he returned to pick her up from her appointment, she was gone. He reported her missing, but she was never found. He died in 1985 and never knew what happened to his wife.Then, over 40 years after she first went missing, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office got a call from an investigator who was wondering if some skeletal remains that had been recently discovered might be a DNA match with Flora. The investigator was wondering if she had any living relatives so he could try to match the DNA.
Due to her dementia, the police don’t know much about what happened to Flora after she went missing. Festus Mbuva, an employee who helped care for Flora at CareOne, the assisted living facility where the police finally found Flora, explained, “To be honest, I don’t think she ever really wanted to be found.” Mbuva added, “You can tell something happened in her past that she didn’t want any part of.”According to Mbuva, Flora didn’t talk about her past very much. Mbuva explained, “Her favorite phrase was ‘none of your business.’”
While police don’t know why or how she disappeared, they do know that there was a bus station near the hospital where she had an appointment. They also know that she had recently been paid, and she may have had some money with her.
The mystery is technically solved, but the details will always be a mystery. In the end, Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff is okay with that. He explained, “The main thing is that we know that Flora is safe.”
