Teacher Mysteriously Disappears After Leaving Cryptic Message on Blackboard
Jan. 28, 2011— -- Police are searching San Francisco's Golden Gate Park for a teacher who mysteriously disappeared after leaving a cryptic message on her classroom blackboard.
English teacher Debra Schmitt, 53, scrawled "Thank you everyone" on her Tierra Lind High School classroom's chalkboard but did not show up to class on Jan. 20, and has not been seen since.
Authorities found her classroom keys in the room. At her Ross, Calif., home police found her house keys, identification, purse and car parked outside.
Police said there were no indications that Schmitt had been abducted, but a cousin told ABCNews.com that the teacher and mother of a 14-year-old boy had been upset and dealing with a number of personal issues.
Linda Czarnik said Schmitt's husband filed this month for divorce and several close family members had died recently. One relative was a policeman killed by a drunk driver on Thanksgiving.
Czarnik, who lives in New Jersey, said she received an email from Schmitt on Jan. 19, the day before she vanished.
"She wrote about the divorce. I'm worried, but I just can't believe she would have done something to hurt herself," she said.
"We love her from the bottom of our heart and we want her to come home if she's out there," Czarnik said. "If anyone, anywhere sees her we're so grateful for your help."
On Wednesday, police searched Phoenix Lake and Ross Creek outside San Francisco where she liked to hike, but did not find anything.
Cops today concentrated their search on San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
According to ABC affiliate KGO-TV, cops searched the park on a lead that she once said that "she likes Golden Gate Park and may one day stay there."
Former and current students took to Facebook to appeal to Schmitt to come back, and ask the public for help in finding her.
"Ms Schmitt! I can't handle reading and watching the news anymore," wrote one student Caitlin Smith. "I had a dream last night that I found you taking a nap on a hill, but there was a river in between us and I wasn't able to reach you.
