KALAMAZOO, MI – The parents of missing Kalamazoo medical resident Teleka Patrick issued a statement Saturday that shares both their grief and their hopes for finding their daughter.
Mattahais and Irene Patrick, of Florida, hope the statement touches a chord with someone who knows where their daughter may be. It was accompanied by a poster by the Indiana State Police, also asking for help in locating the young woman.
Teleka Patrick, originally from Queens, N.Y., is a first-year medical resident in psychiatry with the Western Michigan University School of Medicine who has been missing since Dec. 5. She was dropped off at her car – a gold 1997 Lexus ES300 – in the parking lot of Borgess Medical Center on Gull Road, according to the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office.
The car was found that night in a ditch off westbound I-94 near Portage, Ind. It was found by an Indiana State Police trooper who responded to a report of an unknown accident.
On Friday, Irene Patrick told Kalamazoo Gazette reporter Rex Hall Jr. that she last spoke with her daughter Nov. 28, although the two usually talk by phone every Sunday. She said Teleka spoke with her by telephone as she was driving back to Kalamazoo from a cousin's house in Chicago, where she spent Thanksgiving.
The Patricks traveled to Kalamazoo earlier this week to comb the area for their daughter.
Investigators said earlier this week that police found nothing suspicious in Teleka’s car the night of Dec. 5 and they don’t suspect foul play in her disappearance. But that has not calmed her family's fears.
Following is the Patrick's statement:
It's been seven days, and we still can't find our daughter. Teleka Cassandra Patrick is our eldest and has always been the light of our lives. The dark unanswered questions: Where is she? Who is she with? Is she OK? Is she alive? The questions claw at us, tearing us to shreds. It takes all of our energy not to fall to the floor and scream our hearts out because it's cold outside and she is just a girl.
(She is) the sweetest, kindest and most hopeful girl you could ever meet, who was never too shy to show every single last one of her teeth when she smiled. Never too shy to help someone in need and never too shy to laugh out loud at her own sarcastic corny jokes (she thought she was hilarious). And oh, do we need to see her smile again.
She's worked so, so hard every day of her life and recently finished a dual MD/PhD program at Loma Linda University (in California), before starting her residency at Borgess and Bronson Methodist Hospitals. That is where she went missing on December 5th 2013. The days since have been the most brutal, maddening all-consuming thing we have ever faced. It's been seven days -- seven prayerful, hopeful, terrifying, excruciating, sleepless, tear-filled days. Each day a lifetime. And she's just a girl, a girl who loves sunflower seeds, playing her violin, sneaking white chocolate late at night, blasting her speakers to sing and dance to the latest Mary Mary song. A girl who loves cracking jokes on her little brother and sister Eddie and Tenesha and turning around and giving them sage old advice as if she were their grandmother. And now she's lost.
We are holding fast to our lifeline, Jesus Christ. The inescapable harsh reality is that every day that goes by, every day she's lost in the freezing Midwestern winter means the search gets tougher and infinitely more frustrating, and the odds grow scarcer that she will ever be found. And we can't live with that. We won't. We need help. We need a miracle and we need your help.
Our entire extended network of friends and family has come together to help in the search to find Teleka, but it hasn't been enough. There is a growing social media campaign (#findTeleka), a gofundme account which is helping us raise funds for the search effort (www.gofundme.com/findteleka
We are a family of deep faith, and we will celebrate together when Teleka is found. Our hearts are broken, but we continue to search, we continue to hope and pray and love against odds that get tougher by the day. And we won't stop no matter what. Please continue to pray, donate and share her story with everyone in your network.
Thank you,
Mattahais & Irene Patrick
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