What happened to Alexis Ware? The SC mother of 2 has not been seen for 3 weeks

Here’s what’s known about the disappearance of Alexis Ware, a 29-year-old Greenville mother of two.

The father of her youngest child said he last saw her around 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30, when they met at the 7-11 on Highway 29 north in Anderson County. The children got in his vehicle. He thought they were headed to his mother’s house in separate cars.

But at a red light, Ware went around him and fled into the night.

No family or friends have heard from her since.

“She is labeled as a missing person, but we believe she has been kidnapped,” her mother, Alberta Gray, said in a phone interview Friday.

There’s no way would Ware leave her children for weeks, much less days, Gray said. No way would she not call her mother. No way would she not be available to her beauty clients, some of whom come from as far away as Atlanta to have their hair done at her Greenville home studio.

That was just not who Ware is, Gray said.

Who she is, Gray said, is a kind and loving woman who is known to help out people who were down and out. Not long ago she bought shoes, socks and food for a man outside Walmart.

“She was too nice,” Gray said. “I feel she misjudged this person.”

There are so many unanswered questions about Ware’s disappearance.

On the day Ware disappeared, she told her mother someone was outside her apartment in Greenville in a black truck. She called law enforcement, and when she saw the sheriff’s car leave, she ran down the stairs and into her red Honda sedan.

She dropped her children off with TJ Patterson, her youngest child’s father.

Verizon records show the next bit of information from her was from her phone, pinged 30 miles away in Anderson at 8:15 p.m. Highway cameras picked up her car that same night in Augusta, Georgia, and then when it came back into South Carolina, Gray said.

That next Wednesday, Feb. 2, her red Honda, the one she meticulously cared for, was found covered in mud on a rural road in McCormick County, 70 miles from where Patterson last saw her. It was in an area known as good deer hunting grounds, Gray said.

The property owner saw information about a missing red Honda, the same one he had seen Monday, and called authorities.

Grays said her daughter’s cellphone and purse were inside the car.

Gray said investigators have told her they were able to get fingerprints from the car, but they have not told whether the print belonged to Ware or someone else.

Capt. Steve Reeves of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office declined to say much about the evidence, other than they are considering the car part of a crime scene until they can rule out that a crime has been committed.

He said a search last week of the 222 acres near where Ware’s car was found turned up nothing. The car was taken to Anderson County and processed, and the lead investigator has phone records to peruse.

“I believe the answer is in her phone,” Gray said.

In the days since her disappearance, Ware has reportedly been seen in Greenville and Lexington counties. Calls have come in from outside South Carolina, Reeves said. Each one has been investigated, he said.

In a strange twist, Gray said she has received anonymous texts and Facebook messages from someone claiming to be holding Ware and asking for $200 for her release.

At one point the texter told Gray she should just plan her daughter’s funeral.

“Heartless,” Gray said. “Just somebody trying to extort money from us.”

For her part, Gray, who is recovering from stomach surgery in January, said she doesn’t want to think the worst, but deep inside she fears her daughter is no longer alive.

“I wonder if she’s eating? Is she drinking? Is she cold?” Gray said.

The family is going to Abbeville on Saturday to pass out fliers seeking information, just as they did in McCormick County earlier this month.

She fears not enough attention has been paid to this case, especially compared to that brought to the case of Gabby Petito, who was missing in the western United States before her body was found in Wyoming. Her boyfriend, who died by suicide, admitted in a notebook that he had killed her, the FBI said.

Gray said her family wanted the FBI to join the investigation, but so far it has not.

Reeves said the lead detective has consulted with the FBI, but there was no reason to bring them in.

Gray pleaded for more information.

“We just want Alexis home,” she said. “She is somebody’s daughter. She is somebody’s mother.”