Mary Brubaker

Mary Bernadette Brubaker moved to Arizona while her family lived in Boulder, Colorado. She kept in touch regularly . When she didn't check back in with the to confirm a Western Union transfer in the summer of 1997, her family began to worry that something had happened to her. In late 1996, Brubaker's boyfriend accompanied her on her last visit and the family could tell that things were tense between them. Brubaker and her boyfriend lived in an isolated area and, as she struggled with their tumultuous breakup, she told her sister Colleen Dowdy she was beginning to hear voices. Then communication from Brubaker stopped. Somewhere between Boulder and Yuma, Mary had disappeared. All those things put her as an at-risk missing person, yet none of this mattered to the police, Dowdy said. At the time, they were told that Brubaker had the right to go missing if she wanted as an adult, and that she would probably turn up. To Brubaker's family that explanation didn't make sense. For years, Brubaker's family reached out over and over again — to her ex-boyfriend, her neighbors and law enforcement. They searched for activity on her credit card or driver's license, hired detectives and later spent hours on the internet. But it seemed like Mary Brubaker had vanished without a trace. Brubaker's disappearance weighed heavily on the family including her son who was 13 when his mother vanished. AKAs: Mary Gontarz, Nichole Gontarz