| Updated: 6/18/2009 7:55 pm |
Published: 6/17/2009 4:18 pm |
FOX16 News helps find a missing man who stopped in North Little Rock on a cross country trip. His wife reported him missing along with their SUV and the trailer carrying all of their belongings.
Nearly 24 hours after Elizabeth Coffey filed a missing person's reported on her husband Christopher Coffey and spoke to FOX16 about it, North Little Rock Police found him. "Someone did I guess saw the story and saw him and thought it was the same person and called," says Sergeant Terry Kuykendall with North Little Rock Police.
The call led them to a gas station on East Broadway. When they got there Coffey was on the payphone and police say he was physically fine. "Our officers, after talking to him for awhile, discovered he met someone and decided to leave. He is a recovering crack cocaine addict, he advised our officers that he traded the trailer and all their belongings for crack cocaine," Kuykendall said.
From a relative’s home in Indiana, Elizabeth admits her husband did have a drug addiction but has been clean for over a year. She just couldn't believe he left her behind for drugs. "I'm a person who believes in God, I pray and try not to manifest the bad I try to manifest the good so I kept trying to keep a positive attitude and hoped that wasn't what that was," says Elizabeth.
It doesn't change the fact that at the time her husband left her in a strange place, all alone worrying about his safety. As far as she knows Christopher is on his way to meet her in Indiana in their SUV with very little of their belongings.
This is what Elizabeth had to say when asked if she's angry, "I don't know what I am at the moment. That's what I’m trying to figure out." One thing she does know is that Christopher needs help.
Husband goes missing during couple's move to Alabama
A woman traveling across country says she awoke to find her husband and all of their belongings missing from a North Little Rock motel. Elizabeth Coffey spent two days stranded and worried at the motel.
Elizabeth Coffey and her husband Christopher set off from California for a move to Alabama. She says their future seemed bright. "My job allowed me to transfer. We were moving back to the home he loved and we were buying a house, everything was great," says Elizabeth.
But things took a strange turn when they got off an exit in North Little Rock to get a motel room. It was around 11:30 Monday night. Elizabeth says her husband brought in their luggage and went back out to get a shirt and an iron, she dozed off.
"When I realized my husband was not back in the room I went looking outside and couldn't find him or the vehicle," says Elizabeth.
They have a gray 2003 Dodge Durango with Wisconsin license plate EZ9-220. The Durango has an orange homemade trailer filled with their belongings.
Elizabeth says when she went to police, but officers said her husband could have just left on his own and because of his age he had to be missing 36 hours before they could do anything. "I guess they automatically assume people got into a fight. My husband and I don't fight like that; everything in our life right now is going great," says Elizabeth.
She claims a day after her husband disappeared she saw their SUV in the parking lot of the motel but her husband wasn't driving it. Elizabeth reported this to police and they're looking into it.
"I'm hoping he's not dead somewhere at this point. I don't know, I'm terrified. I don't want to leave here."
The motel doesn't have cameras but the desk clerk says they have a security guard and no one saw Christopher Coffey that night.
