Vais
An Illinois woman whose last known location was in Cherokee County has been found safe in east Tennessee after her phone began pinging again.
According to the Riverside/Brookfield (Ill.) Landmark, 55-year old Lisa Ann Vais was found safe in Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Murphy. She had last been seen by her family on March 5, when she left Riverside, and was last heard from on March 14, when her phone pinged in rural Cherokee County.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office sent deputies to search the area and issued a be on the lookout for her Mazda SUV, but to no avail. However, on the afternoon of March 22, her phone pinged again in Cherokee State Park in Tennessee, after which she was found uninjured by Polk County sheriff’s deputies.
Vais was taken to a Blue Ridge, Ga., hospital as a precaution. She had been spotted twice prior to being found – once when she purchased $3,100 in canned goods from a Food Lion location in Brevard, and during an earlier visit to the emergency room at a Fletcher hospital.
She had reportedly told those close to her that she was heading to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to visit her son when she initially left Riverside. She had also had $20,000 changed into silver coins before heading south, leaving Illinois with a large amount of cash.