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Family searching for woman missing from retirement home

She disappeared Tuesday from a Largo supermarket.

By Richard Danielson, Times Staff Writer
Published March 2, 2008

LARGO - Mary Zelter's family started Saturday morning at the supermarket parking lot where the trail went cold.

"We are relying on the eyes and ears that you provide to help bring my mother back," Mary Lallucci of Belleair told about 50 volunteers - co-workers, fellow church members, friends and friends of friends.

Zelter's family hopes the volunteers can spread thousands of fliers throughout Pinellas and beyond, and that someone will recognize the petite, white-haired woman on the page. They encouraged volunteers to post the fliers at coin laundries, pizza parlors and dry cleaners, anywhere where a lot of people might see them.

"We are looking for one clue," said Zelter's son, Jim Zelter, 45, an investment manager from New York. "One clue may be the key."

Mary Zelter, known as Cappy by family and friends, signed out of the Regal Palms assisted living facility in Largo about 1 p.m. Tuesday and drove away in her white Chrysler Sebring convertible.

Her credit card was used to make a purchase at the Albertsons at East Bay Drive and Belcher Road, about a mile from her retirement home, about 1:30 p.m., Largo police said.

Zelter, who suffers from dementia and high blood pressure, left Regal Palms without her prescribed medications. Police have said she is not in danger from not taking her medicine, but they worry about her getting lost, hurt or suffering from exposure to cold weather.

Zelter's relatives - who have come in from North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and New York to help with the search - fear that someone might have harmed her.

"This is totally unlike my mother," Jim Zelter said. "She was just totally organized."

Although Zelter has dementia, she can get around on her own, was allowed to sign herself out of Regal Palms and recently had improved enough to make other short trips to the store in the past month, Lallucci said.

Zelter, a retired registered nurse and travel agent, has lived at Regal Palms about four months. Before that, she lived in Venice in Sarasota County.

Law enforcement officials have put out a missing person's bulletin for Zelter in Pinellas and surrounding areas, including Venice. Lallucci said it's possible that she might try to return to her old home town.

Before volunteers fanned out Saturday, a priest from her church, St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, prayed for her safe return.

"We ask you for Mary's safety," Father Krzysztof Gazdowicz prayed. "We ask you to inspire her heart and lead her home."

In such cases, Florida could use a senior version of the amber alert system used to notify the public of missing children, said Carolyn Quintin of St. Petersburg, who works with Lallucci at Right Management Consultants in Tampa.

Other states - including Texas, Illinois and North Carolina - have a "silver alert" for missing adults, Quintin said, and Florida should, too.

"The word doesn't get out quickly enough. ... and with a silver alert it would," she said.

Four days after Zelter's disappearance, with no sightings or further activity on her credit card, her family hoped volunteers carried a sense of urgency away with the fliers.

HOW TO HELP:

Have you seen her?

Mary Gill Zelter, 86, is about 5 feet 3, has a thin build and white hair. Her car is a 2003 Chrysler Sebring convertible, white with a black top. It has a Florida tag, CZ 103, and a small decal of European flags on the rear bumper. Largo police ask anyone who sees her or has information about her to call (727) 587-6728.

[Last modified March 2, 2008, 01:13:26]