CHILLIWACK, B.C. -- "I just want her found."
Those are the anguished words of a mother desperate to find her missing daughter.
“I couldn’t imagine my world without her,” an emotional Alina Durham told CTV News Vancouver. “Our kids are just everything.”
Durham’s daughter, 23-year-old Shaelene Bell, was last seen in the 9300 block of Edward Street in Chilliwack on Jan. 30.
A friend told the family that Bell went for a drive and never came back.
“She wasn’t in a good place and she just didn’t come back,” her mom said through tears.
Bell’s abandoned vehicle, a grey 2021 Hyundai Tuscon, was later found near Ballam Road, about seven kilometres from her apartment.
“There’s a very high concern for Shaelene’s safety and well-being,” says Cpl. Mike Rail of the Upper Fraser Valley RCMP.
“We’re following tips and leads that are coming in,” he said.
An RCMP dive team spent the day scouring the murky river near where the Hyundai was found. Meanwhile, a police helicopter searched from overhead. Volunteers were also out for a second day, looking for any sign of the missing woman.
Hanna Fletcher doesn’t personally know Bell, but helped organize a search.
“We’re just going around and showing her face and asking everybody in the neighbourhood to please check their cameras and maybe they saw something they didn’t realize they saw,” she said.
Volunteers, along with family, were also handing out missing person posters.
Durham says when she last saw her daughter Saturday, “she wasn’t herself.”
“I guess you could say (she was) having a struggle,” Durham says.
Her mom says Bell was on medication and would sometimes go to the area where her vehicle was found so she could think. But Durham says for her daughter to vanish is completely out of character.
“She’s beautiful inside and out and she’s got two precious, precious little boys,” said her mom.
Bell is described as having brown eyes and bleach-blonde hair. She’s 5’2” and weighs 95 pounds.
Anyone with information is asked to call police.
