PORT TOWNSEND — After sifting through dozens of tips concerning a Sequim woman missing since May 1, investigators think she has left for King or Snohomish counties, a city police spokesman said Tuesday.
“There’s a strong belief she has left Port Townsend of her own free will,” said Officer Luke Bogues, adding that police do not suspect foul play.
Bogues said detectives have followed up on some four dozen tips regarding the whereabouts of Lauryn R. Garrett, 23, who was last seen at the Port Townsend Safeway supermarket May 1.
“The tips [detectives have] gotten leave them to believe she had left the area on her own accord,” Bogues said.
Based on these tips, he said, detectives believe Garrett may be somewhere along the Interstate 5 corridor.
“We’ve gotten a large number of tips indicating she’s in the north King, southern Snohomish County area,” Bogues said.
Investigators would contact law enforcement in those areas if they had enough details on where Garrett might be, he said, so local officers could confirm her condition.
“We would like to have contact with her, to speak with her and verify she’s OK,” Bogues said.
“I know it would probably give her family a great amount of relief if they were to get a phone call from her.”
A task force composed of Port Townsend police detectives, officials from Clallam and Jefferson County sheriff’s offices, and an FBI agent out of the Poulsbo office was formed to investigate the disappearance.
Lauryn Garrett called her father, Fred Garrett, at about 7:47 p.m. May 1 with a borrowed cellphone at the Haines Place Park and Ride in Port Townsend.
She had arrived a day earlier than her father expected after her return from the Pioneer Center North rehabilitation clinic in Sedro-Woolley, and he got off the phone thinking she would catch a bus to Sequim from Port Townsend, he said.
He said his daughter had a $55.50 check with her when she left the clinic.
Police have said the check has not been cashed.
Soon after she called her father, she was seen leaving two duffel bags in a wooded area near the park and ride, not far from the Safeway.
Lauryn’s mother, Eleana Livingston-Christanson of Sequim, found one of the bags near the Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park on May 7, but the other has not been recovered.
Jefferson County Search and Rescue volunteers searched the trails and lagoon banks of the 80-acre nature park Friday and found no clues to the disappearance.
Description
Lauryn Garrett is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs between 120 and 130 pounds. She has brown hair and hazel eyes.
She has a tattoo of a bird behind her left ear and a tattoo of Washington state on her right wrist.
Anyone with information about Garrett’s whereabouts should phone police at 360-385-3831, ext. 1, or, if it’s an emergency matter, 9-1-1.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
