Missing Colorado mother discovered living on the streets of NYC
A mother from Colorado who was reported missing two months ago has been found living on the streets of New York.
The family of Alyssa Olivier, 39, says she may be going through a mental health crisis and could be violent.
Ms Olivier’s mother, Kristie Olivier, toldThe New York Post: “We are terrified. She is in a state where she’s not entirely coherent.”
“We don’t know if we are dealing with a health issue, a mental health issue or something else,” the 68-year-old added. “She’s been without any means of support for two months. Who knows what she has encountered on the streets?”
A private eye has said that the New York Police Department is also looking for her after she allegedly kicked a person in the head.
Ms Olivier drove from Colorado to Kansas, where she grew up, to visit her great aunt, and then drove on to New York. She’s a graduate of The Cooper Union, a private college in the city where she still has friends.
Her family have said that they stopped receiving texts from Ms Olivier two days after she got to New York on 2 August. After her friends in the city said they hadn’t been in touch with her, the family reported her as missing back in Colorado. Ms Olivier has separated from her husband, with whom she has a 10-year-old daughter. When she left Colorado, the former couple had been in the process of selling their house.
She had been living with her parents and helping her mother, who’s suffering from lymphoma, a type of cancer.
“She was an artist. She painted, she worked with fabric … textiles ... She has her own website,” the mother told The New York Post.
The website states: “Our time is short here/so many things are broken/and there is never the right needle for mending/looking at the sink/I forget to water the plants/and I miss her if she is gone for a moment so/I am pouring out my mind here/to give myself some room.”
“She is very spiritual. She meditates, she does yoga,” Kristie Olivier added. She said that her daughter had appeared to be “overwhelmed by so many life changes” while staying with her parents.
A previous classmate at Cooper Union told Patch that the battery in her car was dead and the gas tank was empty when it was found on 9 August on Third Avenue in Manhattan. While her wallet was not in the car, her purse and some electronics had been left behind.
“The car was found parked in a two-hour parking zone and sat there for a month and never moved … We had credit card receipts,” Kristie Olivier told The New York Post. “She visited an Asian restaurant, a pizza place.”
“Someone found [her wallet] and contacted her. She never claimed the wallet. … That’s the part we don’t know. Did she get assaulted somewhere?” she added.
“She had a brain injury as a kid,” Kristie Olivier said, noting that her daughter had been diagnosed with Henoch-Schonlein purpura at the age of six. It’s a rare disorder that leads to bleeding and inflammation in the small blood vessels. “She still gets headaches and her joints and face will swell up.”
The family hired private investigator Rock Pereira, who said Ms Olivier was not discovered until 29 September when she tried to call her husband twice in the early morning from two separate call kiosks.
Mr Pereira said he got ahold of footage showing Ms Olivier acting aggressively towards two people on a sidewalk and that he received an anonymous tip on 14 October that she had been seen with a white kitten on East 10th Street. He told the paper that he found Ms Olivier near Tompkins Square Park while looking for her with one of her friends.
“She looked tired. She was carrying three bags and she definitely looked homeless,” he said.
She refused both medical care and to go with the private investigator. He gave her $100 along with a list of “important phone numbers” and let her know that “people are worried about you, including your mom”.
“I hope she seeks medical treatment. She needs the help,” he said. He spoke to her for “10 to 12 minutes” and told The Post that “she can hold a conversation and maintain a conversation,” adding that “we can’t just put her in a straitjacket and send her to Bellevue Hospital. The entire situation is delicate. But she does need help”.
“I’d like to see her get a hold of her friends in New York,” Kristie Olivier said. “There were people from coast to coast helping in the search for Alyssa. They still are helping her get into a situation where she is no longer homeless. She is out there on the streets carrying around a bag and a small cat.”
“We are terrified,” she added. “We know the state of the streets in New York and the weather is going to turn. This has baffled us.”
A 43-year-old woman has told police that as she was walking on First Avenue on 12 October, a woman kicked her in the face “causing pain and a bloody nose”. The case remains open.
“This is really a sad case,” Mr Pereira said. “For the sake of her family and friends and the citizens of New York City and for Alyssa, it would be best that she’s found again.”
“Heartbroken doesn’t quite get there,” Kristie Olivier told The New York Post. “I’m crushed.”
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