A note penned on toilet paper and left in an Ohio restaurant bathroom is the only sign family members have seen of a Ypsilanti Township woman reported missing six weeks ago.
Tonya Jackson, 42, was last seen May 3 near Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus. She was driving a 2007 Saab SUV.
On May 19, the note was found at a Steak ’n Shake in Englewood, Ohio, off I-70 a few miles west of I-75.
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“A lot of transient traffic comes through the city,” said Sgt. Mike Lang of the Englewood police. He said it’s possible they were passing through, but it’s also possible it was a prank or any number of possibilities; there was no video surveillance and no other signs were left in the area.
For Tonya Jackson’s husband, L.V. Jackson, and their five kids, it has been “too long without any answers,” he said.
There’s been no activity on her bank account or cell phone. The Jacksons have been married two years and together 11, and their children range in age from 4 to 24, he said.
“Some days, they wake up asking about their mom; some days they don’t,” Jackson said. “I just try to keep it positive.”
He said that when she left the house at 3 p.m. May 3, she told him she was going out for drinks with a friend.
“She gave me a kiss good-bye and said, ‘I’ll see you in a couple hours,’ ” Jackson said. “To my surprise, lo and behold, she wasn’t going to meet a friend.”
Three days later, the friend confessed that she’d been covering for an affair between Tonya Jackson and a man she knew from work, her husband said. The man has “been very cooperative” with police and said he gave her $7 before they parted ways at about 7:30 p.m. May 3, Jackson said.
A spokesman with the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office didn’t respond to requests for interviews but e-mailed a missing-person report on Tonya Jackson. Lang said the note on toilet paper was asking for help and mentioned a red Chevrolet Cavalier and a man named John Samuels.
Jackson said he has no clue who John Samuels could be. But he believes the note was written by his wife in haste.
Meanwhile, the family is struggling to make ends meet. Jackson said his wife was the family breadwinner, doing housekeeping at a local forensics center.
The unemployed father said he sold TVs and cameras to keep afloat.
“I got kids I got to take care of,” he said. “I can’t fall apart.”
The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office asks that anyone with information on the case call the tip line at 734-973-7711. The Saab that Tonya Jackson was driving had Michigan license plate CCL 7888.
