A Jacksonville family is seeking answers after their 72-year-old mother disappeared, suspecting a scam. Her car has been traced across Florida and Georgia.<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville family says they are desperate for answers after their 72-year-old mother, a Navy veteran, disappeared more than a week ago.<\/p>\n
Margaret Hanley was last seen at her home on Jacksonville\u2019s Westside on February 9th. Her family says they have not heard from her since.<\/p>\n
Her son, Jomo Thompson, says the uncertainty has taken a heavy emotional toll on the family.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother and sister, they’re distraught,” Thompson says. “They\u2019re not eating or sleeping very well. We just want to get our mom home.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thompson says his family became concerned after being unable to reach her. When I went to Hanley\u2019s Westside home on Tuesday, there was no car in the driveway.<\/p>\n
After filing a missing persons report, Thompson says he reviewed his mother\u2019s bank account and discovered she had been sending large amounts of money to someone \u2014 transactions he says were unusual and concerning. He believes she may have been the victim of a scam.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a very friendly and smart person. I just don’t know how someone could\u2019ve taken advantage like that,\u201d said Thompson.<\/p>\n
According to the family, Hanley\u2019s 2001 silver Toyota RAV4 has pinged in Gainesville and Starke, Florida. The family also shared a picture of Hanley at a gas station in Starke. Most recently, the vehicle pinged in Hinesville, Georgia.<\/p>\n
Thompson says that kind of travel is out of character for his mother. He added that she has short-term memory loss.<\/p>\n
Detectives say the case does not meet Florida\u2019s Silver Alert criteria, and alerts would not apply if she is believed to be outside the state. Meanwhile, the family says they are continuing to search and are even considering hiring a private investigator.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been lost for words and don\u2019t know what the next steps are,” Thompson said. “I\u2019ve even reached out and hiring private investigator. I figured the more people looking and chasing down leads, the better.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The family is urging anyone with information to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jacksonville family is seeking answers after their 72-year-old mother disappeared, suspecting a scam. Her car has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-159098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}