Melissa Ann Hatley was reported in public missing-person records as a woman from Pearl River County, Mississippi, whose last known contact was in the Hillsdale area. NamUs identifies her as Melissa Ann Hatley, case MP101638, and lists her date of last contact as May 21, 2021, with the last known location recorded as Hillsdale, Mississippi. The publicly available NamUs profile describes her as 61 years old at the time she went missing, White/Caucasian, about 5 feet 4 inches tall, approximately
100 pounds, with gray or partially gray medium-length hair and blue eyes. The case was entered publicly through NamUs and remains listed in published missing-person records, with the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department identified as the investigating agency.
The circumstances described in available records are stark and deeply concerning. According to the case information, Melissa was believed to have wandered into a heavily wooded area near her residence and did not return. Other public Mississippi missing-person listings describe her as last seen walking into the woods around the 100 block of Timberbluff Drive, in the Hillsdale community of Pearl River County. Those same listings note that very few details have been made publicly available, which leaves the story of her disappearance with many unanswered questions and very little for the public to follow beyond the basic facts of where she was last seen and the concern that she may have entered difficult terrain.
There is also a date discrepancy among public records. NamUs lists Melissa’s last contact as May 21, 2021, while the Mississippi Repository for Missing and Unidentified Persons and MissingSippi list May 21, 2022. Because NamUs is the national missing-person case entry and the case data identifies May 21, 2021, as the date of last contact, that date appears to be the primary date associated with the case; however, the existence of differing dates in public sources means the public record is not entirely consistent. What remains consistent across the sources is that Melissa vanished from the Hillsdale/Lumberton area of Pearl River County, that she was associated with the wooded area near Timberbluff Drive, and that public information about what happened afterward is limited.
The investigating agency listed for Melissa’s case is the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department, located in Poplarville, Mississippi. The available case information identifies Investigator Jeff Horner as associated with the investigation, and the agency case number is listed as SO22-009232. A DNA reference sample from a sister is recorded as collected, which indicates that investigative steps were taken to support identification efforts if future evidence were found. No public source located for this synopsis provided a confirmed recovery, a cause of disappearance, or a detailed timeline after she was last seen.
Melissa Hatley’s case is, in many ways, defined by the silence around it. She was a 61-year-old woman last associated with a rural, wooded part of Pearl River County, and the public record suggests concern that she may have wandered away and never returned. The details that are known are few: her name, her age, her physical description, the Hillsdale area where she was last seen, the wooded surroundings, and the Sheriff’s Department responsible for the case. The details that are not known are the painful ones: what she encountered, how far she may have traveled, whether anyone saw her after she entered the area, and why no public resolution has been reported. In overview, Melissa Ann Hatley remains listed in public missing-person records as missing from the Hillsdale community of Pearl River County, Mississippi, after she was last known to be in or near a wooded area around Timberbluff Drive; the case continues to rest on limited public information, a small set of official identifiers, and the enduring hope that answers may still be found.Last Seen: May 21, 2021
