A newly employed University of Missouri-St. Louis employee went missing July 28 and was found July 31. Susan Allen, 55, employed a week and a half at the university left for lunch that Wednesday and never returned. Co-workers became worried after a few hours of her absence. Mitchell Hess, Manager of Cashiering said certain things Allen left behind led to great concern. “It was a possibility [Allen could have just quit] but we had a few things, that I can’t go into detail, that would have made me think otherwise.” Therefore, Hess notified campus police. “Normal procedure is to contact the emergency contact for the employee and then notify the police,” Hess said. There was not a valid emergency contact for Allen.
UM-St. Louis police chief Forrest Van Ness said in any case of a missing person, UM-St. Louis Police Department strives through great lengths to find the missing person. “We do not do like other agencies [who] make you wait a 24 hour period. If the absence is unexplainable [involuntary or suspicious circumstances] then we want to try to explain the absence, so we work on it right away by interviewing the people who saw him/her last,” Van Ness said.
In addition, every missing person must be immediately entered into the Regional Justice Information System (REJIS), Departmental General Order. “Well, there is the regional justice information system that we do and will continue to send out messages that will alert police departments of a missing person and we will provide whatever information there is to help. We do have open lines of communication with the surrounding areas, St. Louis county and highway patrol,” Van Ness said.
Another part of the procedure is to determine the means of departure by inquiring how the person left the campus.
Allen’s husband of 28 years, Jeff Allen, told St. Louis Post-Dispatch that his wife left early that day to attend a meeting at work. Since then he had not seen nor heard from her. Police checked Allen’s cell phone but it had no activity and Allen’s car remained on campus as well. Allen’s husband retrieved the car that Friday.
Mr. Allen also said that his wife worked for a hearing aid company before employed at UM-St. Louis and was laid off at a previous job due to company downsize.
On July 31, the Chesterfield police department received a call around 10 a.m. about a woman riding a bike by the Daniel Boone Bridge. Police discovered it was Allen.
Police said Allen was dirty and bitten by mosquitoes and was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation. They also said “she was not pleased with life and had run away from home.”
Allen is no longer an employee at UM-St. Louis.