More than 100 people searched Wednesday for a missing woman who wandered away from her rural Plainfield home a day earlier.
Cloris Mehmen suffers from Alzheimer’s and dementia and hasn’t been seen since Tuesday morning, according to Bremer County Sheriff Dan Pickett.
Authorities late Wednesday put a call out for volunteers to help with the search today. Volunteers must be 18 years old, wear closed toe footwear, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts (to protect from wild parsnip and other vegetation/insects).
Mehmen is a 76-year-old, white female last seen wearing blue jeans and a men’s short-sleeved shirt.
Authorities hunted roads, ditches and an 8-mile radius around her home northeast of Plainfield on Tuesday night with no luck. On Wednesday crews from surrounding communities joined for a more detailed search over a larger area.
“We have probably 100-plus people,” Pickett said.
Searchers are looking in outbuildings and canvassing homes in the area.
Pickett said investigators are also following up on possible sightings in cities as far away as Waterloo, some 30 miles to the south.
Mehmen was last seen at about 7:30 a.m. when her husband left the house, Pickett said. Authorities were notified she was missing at about 5 p.m.
Deputies received a tip a person matching Mehmen’s description was seen in the area of County Road C33/190th Street and U.S. Highway 63 getting into an older white vehicle at about 3:14 a.m. Wednesday, Pickett said. He said it was unclear whether the person was actually her.
The site is about 13 miles southeast of Mehmen’s home.
Another person reported seeing someone who looked like Mehmen in Waterloo, and officials are looking into this unconfirmed sighting, according to Pickett.
It isn’t the first time Mehmen has been missing. Authorities have responded to three other reports of her wandering off in the last few months, but in the past she was found quickly, Pickett said.
“She has wandered,” said Jo Dietz, a neighbor. “My husband brought her home a couple weeks ago. She had gone up to the blacktop up north here.”
Anyone with information on Mehmen’s whereabouts should call the Bremer County Dispatch Center at (319) 352-5400 ext. 3.
