In the small town of Sullivan, Missouri, 69-year-old Betty Alexander was a familiar and beloved figure, a grandmother who, despite being in the early stages of dementia, was known for her routine and her love for her family. On April 10, 2019, she was seen for the last time, tending to her garden in the afternoon at her apartment on South Center Street. That evening, it appeared she took her 7:00 p.m. medication as prescribed and settled in for the night.
However, the next morning, things began to deviate from her normal pattern. Betty missed a physical therapy appointment and a scheduled delivery from Meals on Wheels, which was highly uncharacteristic for a woman who did not drive and rarely walked anywhere by herself. Her family grew concerned when she couldn't be reached over the next couple of days.
The concern turned to alarm on Sunday, April 14, when Betty's daughter, Tonya, arrived for a planned shopping trip to find her mother's apartment door locked and her mother gone. Upon entering the residence, an unsettling scene emerged. Bettyï s eyeglasses, which she needed constantly and would not even go to the mailbox without, were resting on a recliner. Her purse, containing her wallet, state identification, and keys, was found tucked away in her closet. Inside her wallet was $200 in cash, separated into two envelopes, a sum of money her daughter, who managed her finances, could not account for. While her morning medications for April 11th were left untouched, a significant and troubling item was missing: one of two boxes of fentanyl patches that had just been delivered for her back pain. There were no signs of a struggle or forced entry, with the only possible anomaly being a scratch on the screen door's glass. The state of the front door also raised questions; a delivery driver had found it unlocked on Friday, but it was locked again by the time her daughter arrived on Sunday.
In the years following Betty Alexander's disappearance, extensive searches of the surrounding area, including the use of K9 units, have yielded no trace of her. The investigation has been marked by a frustrating lack of significant leads, leaving her family in a painful state of uncertainty. Driven by hope, her children have worked tirelessly to keep her memory in the public eye, distributing flyers and eventually securing a billboard to display her picture and information about a reward for any details leading to her whereabouts. This persistence brought a glimmer of hope in late 2025 when the billboard generated a new tip from a person who believed they saw Betty walking miles outside of Sullivan on the day she vanished, prompting the Missouri State Highway Patrol to organize a new search in a specific area. The case remains an active investigation, a deeply troubling mystery of how a 69-year-old grandmother could vanish from her home, leaving behind essential belongings and a family desperate for answers.Last Seen: Apr 11, 2019
