A neighbor sees the 75-year-old woman come out of a shed one block from home. Her doctor says she's unharmed.
By STEVE THOMPSON
Published May 16, 2003
[Times photo: Steve Thompson]
Betty Jane Theobald, center, is reunited with her husband, John Theobald, and daughter Deb Heidepriem after disappearing Wednesday morning.
[Times photo: Lance Rothstein]
Deb and Greg Heidepriem thank the Zephyrhills community with a sign.
ZEPHYRHILLS - Pasco sheriff's deputies spent 29 hours searching for a missing woman, using helicopters, police dogs, bicycles, all-terrain vehicles and horses.
Her neighbors found the 75-year-old Thursday morning - in a shed, one block from her a Ramblewood park home.
Betty Jane Theobald, an Alzheimer's patient, had pulled two lawn chairs together inside the shed, laid a cushion across them and apparently had slept in her robe and pajamas as police and family members frantically searched for her. She had even fashioned a makeshift toilet with a bowl she found inside the shed.
She was found at 10 a.m. Thursday, hungry but in good health.
"I don't know what all this fuss is about," son-in-law Greg Heidepriem recalled Theobald saying when her family welcomed her home. They made her a big breakfast of orange juice, coffee, scrambled eggs and toast.
Theobald's doctor later gave her a checkup, and said having missed her heart and blood pressure medications had not harmed her.
Family members don't know what made her decide to get out of bed early Wednesday morning and wander to the shed.
Despite the intensive search by Pasco authorities, it was neighbor Wanda Morris who finally spotted Theobald.
"I was eating breakfast and looked out the window and noticed her in the side of my neighbor's yard," said Morris, who lives down the street from the Overbrook Boulevard home that Theobald shares with her husband of 57 years, John.
"She came out, and she was there for an instant," Morris said. "She was just looking down the road."
Theobald then disappeared back into the shed and locked the door, Morris said.
Morris, who didn't know Theobald but had heard of her disappearance, went across the street to the front door of Edith Storer, the shed's owner. Storer's caregiver and Morris went and knocked on the shed's door and Theobald opened it.
"We took her over to the porch, and she sat down," Morris said. "Then I asked her name, but she didn't know it."
Theobald did tell Morris she lived in the Ramblewood mobile home park. Another woman went to get a Ramblewood manager, who notified Theobald's family.
More than 30 Pasco County sheriff's deputies had combed the area within a 4-mile radius of Theobald's mobile home, searching for her all day Wednesday.
"I'm at a loss, I just don't know where she could be," said sheriff's Lt. Joe Frontz on Thursday morning before was found.
Later, after having spent so much effort searching, Frontz said he was just relieved when Theobald finally was found safe.
"I know if it was my mother, I'd want the Sheriff's Office to do the same thing," Frontz said.
Deputies had tried the doors of every shed, screen porch, patio and vacant home in the area, including the one Theobald was in, Frontz said. But Theobald had apparently locked the shed from the inside, and deputies had no reason to suspect she was there.
A bloodhound had led deputies through the neighborhood past the shed's vicinity but did not alert deputies to it, Frontz said.
Family members late Thursday morning made posters to thank everyone who had helped in the search. They put one up in front of Theobald's home and several around Zephyrhills.
"Everyone was just gold to us," Heidepriem said.
Local businesses had put up fliers and helped get the word out.
Said Heidepriem: "There wasn't one person in this park, I don't think, who wasn't out here helping out."
