Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Aly Marques' life has been more difficult than most.
The former Forrest resident (2003-2010) had her first heart surgery to repair a leaky valve when she was 9 days old, said her great aunt, Laurie Haskell.
In 2003, when she was 7, she was living with her father in Killeen, Texas, when he committed suicide. In January 2010, she was a passenger in a car that collided with a snow plow and left her with a broken collarbone and wrist. In March, she passed out at her Clovis home and was rushed to the hospital emergency room, where it was learned she'd been inhaling canned air.
She's been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, undergone three heart surgeries now, and cut her wrist sometime last year, Haskell said.
On June 7, Aly disappeared from the back yard of Haskell's house at 935 Hondo St. in Clovis, where she'd been living for about a year, Haskell said.
She's been missing since then.
Police classified her a runaway, but recently changed her status to "endangered" after repeated pleas from family who are seeking community help in finding her.
Aly had thoughts of running away prior to her disappearance, according to a supplemental police report provided on Tuesday.
Aly Marques also had been in contact with an Albuquerque-area woman affiliated with a church group and "mentions she might visit when school is out," the police report shows.
Police learned of the Albuquerque woman and Aly's thoughts of running away through the girl's Facebook page. She also told a cousin she thought she was pregnant, the report shows. Haskell said Aly is not pregnant.
Aly, 16, has never run away, and never would, Haskell insists. But she has a history of "blanking out" and getting lost.
Several months ago, Haskell said, Aly went in search of a lost dog and was gone most of a day before being found wandering in a field near Plains Regional Medical Center.
Jennifer McAdoo, Aly's biological mother who lives in Eerie, Pa., said she got lost on her way to school one day and was found hours later at a McDonald's, miles from her intended destination.
McAdoo, like Haskell, is fearful that Aly's life is in danger.
"We don't know what's happened. Honestly, she could have followed a butterfly out of the yard and not been able to find her way back. She could have gotten mad and gone off with a friend. We just don't know," McAdoo said.
Some family members were concerned Aly may have left town with a man from Missouri she met several months ago, but police told them they located the man and he was not involved in the teen's disappearance.
Haskell said Aly has always been "a little slow," but has shown serious mental disorders since the "huffing" incident with the canned air. In addition to becoming disoriented, she drops off to sleep without warning. She's claimed to have seen her dead father several times in the past year.
"She told a few people since January that he was alive and in Missouri," Haskell said.
Haskell learned of the suicide attempt in January when she saw cuts on Aly's wrist.
Haskell said she last saw Aly late in the morning on June 7, cheerful and working in the back yard. Twenty minutes later, she was gone.
Police have since followed reports that a female matching Aly's description was seen at the Allsup's convenience store at Prince and Brady streets in Clovis and then again by a landscaper on the highway headed to Portales.
Clovis police Lt. Jim Schoeffel said a witness told authorities a woman matching Marques' description was seen hitchhiking southbound on U.S. 70 the day Marques disappeared.
The woman told the witness she was headed to Missouri and continued south after being told she was going the wrong way, Schoeffel said.
Schoeffel said police have had few leads since June 7. A report of a woman matching Aly's description hitchhiking in Pflugerville, Texas, has not been confirmed, he said.