NEW ORLEANS — A Texas-based search group is in New Orleans, trying to find a woman who’s been missing for six days.
Part of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Michelle Reynolds, 48, sits at the corner of St. Joseph and S. Peters Streets in downtown New Orleans. Her Lexus SUV has been parked there for days.
“We only have one fact. She’s missing,” founder and director of Texas EquuSearch Tim Miller said.
Miller has a team of about a dozen people trying to track down Reynolds, a sixth-grade teacher in Alvin, TX where she lives.
While hard to make out, Miller believes surveillance video from Friday afternoon shows Reynolds parking her SUV and then walking away, alone.
“Her purse was left in the car with her credit cards, a debit card, driver’s license, and phone was left in the car,” said Miller.
Miller’s team spent part of Tuesday in a helicopter, searching about 20 miles of the Mississippi River.
“We don’t have any evidence she’s in the river but as close to the river as it is, we said let’s start out with process of elimination,” Miller said.
Now they’re trying to find surveillance video to track Reynolds’ movements. The nonprofit search group got involved after Miller got a call from Reynolds’ husband, Michael, asking for help. Michael Reynolds told Eyewitness News the last time he heard from his wife was Thursday.
“She said that she was going to get something to eat and she never returned,” Michael Reynolds said.
Michael Reynolds was able to track the SUV to the downtown intersection, about 360 miles away from the couple’s home. He and his brother-in-law drove to New Orleans over the weekend to try and find her but had no luck.
“I’m trying to wrap my head around it,” Miller said.
Miller says New Orleans police fingerprinted the SUV but as of Wednesday, there were no results. He admits it’s a bizarre case and has no idea why Michelle Reynolds would be in the city.
“We’ve been in 42 states, 11 different countries and every time we think we’ve seen everything, something new pops up,” Miller said. “She has no connections in New Orleans and that’s the big question. What in the world was she doing here?”
Miller said Reynolds recently took a temporary leave from her teaching job but didn’t know if that has anything to do with her missing. He’s only focused on trying to find her.
“There was some confusion going on, what that was all about, I don’t know and I’m not even going to speculate,” Miller said. “We’re going to work on that one fact, she’s missing.”
New Orleans police confirm Michelle Reynolds was reported missing out of Texas and they’re working with Texas authorities. Miller said while officers handle the investigative side, his team is the “boots on the ground” effort.