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My father in law and great aunt wandered off a few times. I don’t know what the living situation is for your in laws but think about ‘alarms’ on the exit doors so when the door opens a chime or something goes off. Also, a ‘tracker’ on one of their shoes.
A sad story. It happened about halfway through his journey when he could still drive and such. My FIL was very fit and active and was still able to play 18 holes of golf, walking the entire course. The plan was for him to drive to one of the two course he had golf at for over 20+yrs and meet a buddy at 8am for a round of golf. My MIL was then to drive to meet him at the course for lunch with the friends wife. He left at 7:30 with a banana and a granola bar for a snack during his round.
MIL goes to the course around 11:45 and after parking sees the friend putting his clubs away in his car and asks how was the golf? Friend says fine but Bob didn’t show up. MIL is like, ‘what!?, he left at 7:30 to be here for 8am.’ They check the parking lot to see if the car was there and that maybe Bob played a round with someone because he knew so many people there. No car. MIL drives to the other course that he plays at, no Bob and no one saw him. She starts calling around to family and friends, no Bob. Now it’s about 1:30pm and he’s been gone since 7:30am. Call to the Massachusetts State Police and explain the situation to them. Family members start driving various routes from the house to other course, he’s old work places, etc, no luck. It’s dinner time now, no Bob. He has no call phone and does have a ATM card, only cash pocket cash and his VISA. Joint VISA card, so call to bank to see if activity, no activity.
All this is happening in Massachusetts, south of Boston and we are in Georgetown packing up our house because the movers are coming the next day to move us to Burlington. We have a 2yr old and 4yr old with us. My wife is lying in bed crying as she’s convinced that he’s dead, carjacked or whatever. I’m trying to deal with her, the two toddlers and stil attempting to pack.
At 11pm we get the call. He’s alive, he has caught running a toll gate driving into Brooklyn 3.5hrs away and NY State Police officer pulled him over and ran his plates and saw that a missing persons file had been opened. One of my wife’s brothers and sisters had to drive the 3hrs to pick him up and drive his car back as well.
Next day, after he slept late, MA State police interviewed him. He had zero knowledge of where he went that day. The banana peel was in the car, the wrapper of the granola bar and an empty coffee cup, plain white. Nothing else. Golf clubs in the trunk. No receipts and he had ‘change’ in his pocket which he never carried so they knew that he must have bought gas, the coffee and maybe some food during the 18hrs he was missing.
That day they pulled his license and the MIL took the keys. His car was sold shortly after. In the 5yrs that he lived after this event, he never had any more info as to where he was driving or at for those 18hrs.
