Family speaks on ongoing search for 95-year-old woman missing from Mountain Home

Yahoo

25-02-2025

BATESVILLE, Ark. – The search for Belva Day continues on land, over water and in the air.
The 95-year-old from Mountain Home has been missing for over two weeks. She was last seen driving after paying her electric bill on Thursday, Feb. 6.
A 95-year-old Mountain Home woman is still missing after 2 weeks
On Feb. 24, Chaos Divers, a search and recovery team out of southern Illinois, searched the White River from boat ramps in Batesville, Oil Trough and Newport.
Day and her beige Buick LeSabre with license plate USADOGN may not be in the water, but with police verifying her vehicle sighted in Gepp, and other unverified sightings ending in Batesville, Chaos Divers owner Jacob Grubbs got the family's blessing to take the search a bit deeper.
'No maps. No GPS. No phone. I mean she could be lost. She could be just still wandering the streets and driving around,' Grubbs said. 'We don't know exactly where she's been since she doesn't have a debit card and we can track her that way. So all we're doing today and tomorrow is clearing out the most prominent accident spots. It's all we can do.'
Chaos Divers has helped locate over 500 vehicles and 19 human remains, according to Grubbs. In 2021, they assisted in the recovery of Samantha Hopper and her daughter Courtney Holt in Pope County. Both had been missing for 23 years, but Grubbs said they have also made recoveries of someone missing less than a week.
Belva Day's daughter, Patti Ades, said her family has been reached out to by strangers trying to help, and they cannot thank everyone enough.
'It has restored our hope in mankind, to be honest,' she told KARK 4 News.
Ades continued that if anyone wants to help find her mom, they should not just mention or post they think they saw her mom's car, but report it to local police and check the license plate.
'We pray she comes home but every day that goes by, that we don't hear anything, that she doesn't come home, you know, I wouldn't wish this all my worst enemy,' Ades said. 'This is a horrible thing for a family to go through.'
Silver Alert issued for 95-year-old Mountain Home woman
Ades said this action by her mom blindsided the entire family, but she is second-guessing if she should have taken her independent parent's keys away. Meanwhile, active searches are trying to take the guesswork out of where Belva might be.
'Hopefully we can bring her home safely, and if not then it's a sad day but at least we can give her answers,' Grubbs said.
Chaos Divers will pause their search Tuesday until April when they plan to assist other families in Arkansas and Oklahoma. They will be able to bring equipment for searching smaller bodies of water then.
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