AFP story helps solve missing-person mystery

A woman reported missing in Delaware on Sept. 24 has been located in Waynesboro with the help of a story on AugustaFreePress.com.

Nora Ellen Gibson, 44, of Smyrna, Del., was reported missing by her family on Sept. 24. The missing person’s report, according to news reports in Delaware, said Gibson had not been seen or heard from by family members since Sept. 18, and said that Gibson may have been distraught over financial matters.

Gibson was arrested in an incident at the Augusta Free Press Publishing office on Sept. 19 and charged with tampering with a vehicle and obstruction of justice after entering without permission a vehicle owned by the author of this report, Chris Graham.

She has been held in custody on those charges in Middle River Regional Jail since her arrest.

A police spokesperson said the next day that Gibson was not being cooperative with police and magistrates and that little was known about her other than that her identification had indicated that she was from Delaware.

The spokesperson said the city police department ran Gibson’s name through state and national crime-information databases following her arrest.

Fast forward from Sept. 20 to Sept. 29. A number of news organizations in Delaware picked up on the missing person’s report that had been filed in Smyrna on Sept. 24. A former coworker e-mailed me late Wednesday to say that he had put Gibson’s name into a Google News search and found our story and asked if I would look at the story from a Delaware paper online from that day to see if the person in the photograph matched the person that we had seen here two weeks ago.

It did, and we immediately contacted the Waynesboro Police Department to pass on the discovery.

A police spokesperson said today that the Waynesboro PD has been in contact with police in Smyrna to inform them of Gibson’s whereabouts.

Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.

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