Marissa Carmichael made a distressed 911 and then disappeared. Dana Mustian never showed up at her daughter's birthday party.
Desperate relatives are searching for two missing mothers who simply vanished in North Carolina, in towns 100 miles apart, leaving behind their children and no traces of where they might be.
Marissa Carmichael, 25, called 911 for help in the wee hours of Jan. 14, saying she had been dumped at a gas station in Greensboro and a man had driven off with her cellphone. She didn't know where she was, she said.
Dana Mustian, 33, was last seen on Nov. 30, in the driveway of her home, where she kissed her father goodbye and said she would see him tomorrow. When she didn't show up for her daughter's sixth birthday party just days later, her family reported her missing.
In both cases, police have searched for the missing women without success. In both cases, distraught families have said there is no reason the women would voluntarily leave behind their children.
Sara Carmichael, Marissa's mother, is now left caring for her five grandchildren, ranging in age from 3 to 9. "This has never happened. I've never been able to not locate her," Sara tells Inside Edition Digital.
"We have to get her home," the worried mother says. "As much as I'm hurting for my daughter, I'm hurting for my grandchildren," she says. "They're having a hard time. Her children need her."
Sara says she is being treated for a terminal illness. "I don't have all the time in the world. I'm trying to keep it together because when I fall apart, I have to put myself back together. I have to focus."
Megan Mustian, Dana's sister-in-law, said it seems as if Dana just vanished from the face of the Earth.
“We’ve tried ground searches, ponds, woods, anywhere we could think of,” the relative told CBS17. “People in the community have just rallied and we didn’t realize how loved and how many people knew her.”
Dana was reported missing on Dec. 4. Her worried family said they began calling when she didn't show up for her daughter's birthday celebration, something they say was not like her. Relatives left messages. Then Dana's phone began going directly to voice mail.
“She was the life of the party. She knew everybody, everybody knew her,” Megan said. That's why it's so mind-boggling that no one seems to know where she is in the rural area where the family lives in Warren County.
“We just want to make sure her voice is heard, and we’re her voice,” Dana said. The sheriff's office has said the search for Dana is ongoing. A multi-agency patrol went out Saturday, but had no luck.
It means a great deal to her family that authorities are still searching.
“It just meant so much that they are putting boots on the ground, and doing everything they can to find her,” Megan said.
But in High Point, about a two-hour drive to the west, Marissa's mother says she is not pleased with the way Greensboro police officers have handled her daughter's disappearance. "The detectives aren't saying much," she says.
Marissa had gone out with friends the night she disappeared. She went to a club, then to an after-hours house party, her mother says.
Someone gave her a ride to a convenience store inside an Exxon gas station, according to the 911 call she made. While she was inside, she told the operator, the driver took off with her phone in his car.
"He told me to come into the store and took off on me. I don't know where I'm at and he took my phone," Marissa told the dispatcher, according to a copy of the recorded call released by police.
Sara Michael says she believes her daughter left the gas station with another man, who offered her a ride home, citing a man's voice, heard in the backround of Marissa's 911 call, offering her a lift.
Marissa hasn't been seen since.
Greensboro Police Department spokeswomn Annette Ayers tells Inside Edition Digital that investigators are doing everything they can to find the missing mother.
More than a dozen interviews have been conducted since Marissa went missing, Ayers said. Surveillance video is being analyzed and investigators this week searched abandoned buildings in the area where she was last seen.
Asked if a person of interest had been identified, Ayers replied, "That I cannot comment on. It's an active investigation."
On Tuesday,police posted on Facebook that they were still looking for Marissa, and asked for the public's help.
"Our community is really interested in helping us find her," Ayers says. Investigators "are still actively searching for Ms. Carmichael.
"We're just getting more concerned as the days pass," Ayers said.
In its most recent Facebook post, police said, "Our department is increasingly concerned for her welfare."
Anyone with information about Marissa Carmichael is asked to send a text to p3tips.com or to call Crimestoppers at (336) 373-1000. Tips may be made anonymously.
Anyone with information about Mustian is asked to call the Warren County Sheriff’s Office at (252) 257-3364.
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