On November 20, 2009, 56-year-old Carlita Yvette Gentry Lohmeier was at her home in Detroit, Michigan with her mother. She decided to walk to a local store on Hubbell and Fenkell, just two blocks from her residence on Marlowe Street. She told her mother she would only be gone for a few minutes, but she never returned. Carlita has not been seen or heard from since that day.
At the time of her disappearance, she was described as being 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 107 pounds, with gray hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a short jacket, blue jeans, and red medium-length crocodile boots. Carlita has a small scar in the center of her forehead and her right earlobe is split from an earring being pulled out. She sometimes wore dark-colored wigs or hair pieces.
There has been very little information released to the public regarding Carlita's case, and it is not believed that she disappeared of her own accord. Reports indicate that she left her identification and other personal belongings behind, suggesting she did not intend to be gone for an extended period. Carlita was a widow and a mother to several children. The years following her disappearance have been marked by a painful lack of answers for her family, who continue to seek information about what happened to her.
Tragically, Carlita's family experienced another loss years after she went missing. In 2017, her granddaughter or cousin, with some sources differing on the exact relationship, Mia Patterson, also disappeared from Detroit. Mia's remains were discovered in April 2018, and her death was ruled a homicide which remains unsolved. Investigators have stated that they do not believe the two cases are connected. The disappearance of Carlita Gentry Lohmeier remains an unresolved case with few leads. The circumstances surrounding her vanishing after a simple trip to a neighborhood store are still a mystery, leaving her loved ones in a state of prolonged uncertainty. The Detroit Police Department continues to be the point of contact for any information regarding her whereabouts.
Carlita Yvette Gentry Lohmeier was a 56-year-old woman who was last seen in Detroit, Michigan, on November 20, 2009, after what was supposed to be an ordinary, brief trip to a neighborhood store. Carlita was a Black woman who stood approximately 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed about 107 pounds. She had brown eyes and naturally gray, described in records as silver-gray, hair that she wore short, although she also sometimes wore dark-colored wigs or other hairpieces that could significantly change her appearance. Two distinguishing features offered additional ways to recognize her: a small scar in the center of her forehead and a right earlobe that had been split after an earring was pulled through it. On the day she vanished, she was reportedly wearing blue jeans, a short jacket, and distinctive red, medium-length crocodile-style boots. NamUs identifies her disappearance as case MP10639 and records Detroit in Wayne County as the location of her last known contact. Other public missing-person records also note that she may have used the last name Patterson.
Carlita’s final known movements began at her home on Marlowe Street on Detroit’s west side. She was at home with her mother when she decided to walk to a nearby store in the area of Hubbell and Fenkell. The store was only about two blocks from the house, and Carlita indicated to her mother that she expected to be gone for only a few minutes. Public accounts describe her leaving on foot, making the errand appear to be the kind of short neighborhood trip that ordinarily would not have caused alarm. The Charley Project records that she was subsequently seen at the store at Hubbell and Fenkell, establishing that she apparently reached the destination she had told her mother she was going to. What happened after that point has never been explained in the publicly released record. Carlita did not return to the Marlowe Street residence, and her family did not receive another known communication from her. There is no publicly documented account of her telling anyone that she planned to go somewhere else after visiting the store, arranging transportation out of the neighborhood, or preparing to be away from home for an extended period.
The circumstances were made more concerning by indications that Carlita had not prepared for an extended absence. The Black and Missing Foundation has reported that she did not take her identification with her when she left home, while other published accounts state that identification and personal belongings were left behind. That detail was consistent with what she had told her mother: she was simply walking a short distance to the store and expected to return quickly. No vehicle is associated with the disappearance in the public NamUs-based accounts, and the known journey was on foot through a neighborhood close to her home. Despite the seemingly limited distance involved, the available online records do not describe a confirmed sighting after the store, a person known to have accompanied her, or another destination she intended to visit. They also do not provide a publicly established timeline showing where she went after leaving the Hubbell and Fenkell area. That gap—between a woman completing or beginning a routine neighborhood errand and then failing to come home—became the central mystery surrounding Carlita’s disappearance.
Carlita had a family waiting for her, making the disappearance far more than an unexplained absence recorded in a database. The Charley Project describes her as a widow and the mother of five children. Her intention to return within minutes, combined with the short distance between her home and the store, gave her loved ones little reason to expect that the errand would become the last known episode of her life available to investigators. Few additional investigative details have ever been released publicly. There is no identified vehicle connected to her final movements, no detailed account of evidence recovered along the route, and no publicly named witness who described seeing what happened to her after she visited the store. The Detroit Police Department is identified as the investigating agency, and the disappearance has continued to be circulated through missing-person organizations and databases so that Carlita’s name, photographs, physical characteristics, and final known location remain publicly recognizable. Her gray hair or use of wigs, the scar on her forehead, the damaged right earlobe, her small stature, and the red boots she was reportedly wearing were all details capable of distinguishing her if someone had encountered her around the time she disappeared.
Years later, Carlita’s family endured another devastating disappearance when a younger relative, Mia Patterson, vanished from Detroit in 2017. The Charley Project identifies Patterson as Carlita’s granddaughter and reports that Patterson’s remains were found on April 10, 2018 and later identified through DNA. Authorities found no indication that Patterson’s case was connected to Carlita’s disappearance, but the second tragedy added another painful chapter for a family that was already living without answers about Carlita. The connection is important as part of the family’s history, but public records provide no evidence that it explains what happened on the night Carlita disappeared. Her own case remains rooted in the events of November 20, 2009: a 56-year-old Detroit woman left her Marlowe Street home for a store only two blocks away, was last associated with the Hubbell and Fenkell area, and failed to make the short trip back to the home where her mother expected her within minutes. In overview, Carlita Yvette Gentry Lohmeier’s disappearance is defined by the ordinary nature of what she intended to do and the extraordinary absence that followed—a brief walk to a familiar neighborhood store, personal belongings left behind, no announced plans to leave Detroit or stay away, and then a sudden break in all known contact. The Detroit Police Department investigation and national missing-person records have preserved the few known details of that day, but the publicly available story still ends at the neighborhood store, leaving her loved ones without an explanation for what happened after Carlita walked out intending to come home only minutes later.Last Seen: Nov 20, 2009
