TOWNSHEND — Vermont State Police are seeking the public's help in locating a woman missing from Townshend since Sept. 6.
Trooper Jeff Hudon of the VSP's Brattleboro barracks told The Commons on Saturday that Helen Holmes was last seen at her Plumb Road home at 8 a.m. the previous day. Police have been attempting a welfare check since the 59-year-old woman failed to show up for a 2 p.m. appointment.
“Anyone who can help get the word out, we're trying to check her welfare,” said Hudon.
According to a VSP press release issued Tuesday afternoon by Det. Sgt. Barbara Zonay, detectives with the VSP's Bureau of Criminal Investigation continue to monitor Holmes's cell phone, social media, and financial activity while checking potential locations where she may have gone, “all with negative results.”
“At this time, there are no indications of foul play; however, the Vermont State Police remain concerned for her safety,” Zonay said.
Volunteer search parties on foot and horseback searched the area in vain on Sunday.
According to a message distributed on Facebook by her husband, Steven St. Peter, Holmes “loved old cellar holes and graveyards and frequented them frequently in the past for the peace and solitude she felt there.”
St. Peter noted that Holmes, an artist and a registered nurse who works at Grace Cottage Hospital, has a favorite cellar hole on Crane Mountain, but neither he nor her daughters remember how to access these sites.
“If you have any of the types of places on your land, or know of any of these types of places, please check them [or] have other people check their land for isolated spots where a person could be with a car yet not be seen easily,” St. Peter writes.
Looking for a red Subaru
Holmes is believed to be driving her car, a 2010 red/burgundy Subaru Forester, with Vermont license plates DAK 316 and a bumper sticker that reads,“Wag more, bark less.”
On Sept. 8, Holmes's daughter, Tracy Allard, posted an update on her Facebook account, urging people to look for her mother's car.
“I don't believe my mother is local anymore,” Allard wrote. “If we find her car, we may find the area she is in or clues to her whereabouts.”
Anyone with information about Holmes's whereabouts, or who has seen Holmes since Friday, is asked to call Zonoy at the Vermont State Police Brattleboro barracks at 802-254-2382.
People can also submit an anonymous tip via text message to CRIMES (274637) with keyword VTIPS, or via the VSP's website (vsp.vermont.gov/tipsubmit).