KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The husband of missing Overland Park woman Marilane Carter said he's encouraged by recent tips received in connection with her disappearance.
Adam Carter told 41 Action News on Friday that after news of Carter’s disappearance spread in several states on Thursday, authorities received one tip that Carter had gotten gas on Monday morning in northern Mississippi, about 25 miles from where her cellphone last pinged near Memphis, Tennessee. A woman said she had helped Carter get gas, and Carter was seen going into the bathroom, wearing a white shirt, black yoga pants and a backpack.
The sighting on Monday is the last time anyone has seen Carter, her husband said.
The search for Carter has focused on the Memphis area after her family reported her missing to Overland Park police. Her last credit card purchase came from a gas station in West Memphis, Arkansas. A clerk at that store also confirmed that Carter had been seen there.
Adam Carter said his wife planned to seek mental health treatment at a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, where she had previously worked.
“I had offered to take her to a hospital there in the Kansas City area, but she wanted to go somewhere to just get some help at a place that she felt that she could trust and was familiar with,” Adam Carter said.
Adam Carter, the lead pastor at Leawood Baptist Church, said he has been moved by the show of support for his wife in the Kansas City area. The church held a prayer vigil for Carter on Thursday night.
“I was moved to tears seeing those pictures. The text messages and the encouragement, that has been huge — friends, family, neighbors who have reached out to us,” Adam Carter said. “So the folks in Kansas City, just keep praying. I’m a firm believer that prayer works.”
He said that his wife cares deeply about helping others, and now he’s hoping that others will be there to help her.
“She’d do anything for anybody and to help someone,” Carter said. “She’s helped a lot of people over the years; she’s helped me. I’m forever indebted to her and so I think this is a way that all of us can pay it forward to her because she’s given so much to so many other people.”
Carter left her Overland Park home on Saturday evening and has not contacted her family since Sunday, which they say is out of character for her.
She is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs around 130 pounds. She has long brown hair and green eyes.
She was driving her gray 2011 GMC Acadia with Kansas tags 194 LFY.
Anyone with information should call local law enforcement or 911.
