A volunteer dive crew has restarted the search for Karen Adams, a missing Pennsylvania woman who disappeared in 2007 after leaving a West Virginia casino.
According to Aug. 23 reporting from an NBC/FOX affiliate in Ohio, divers are searching the Ohio River, about an hour west of Pittsburgh, for Adams, who was 54 when she disappeared.
Adams had been playing slots and bingo at the Mountaineer Casino Resort in New Cumberland until about 4 a.m. on March 12, 2007. Police also never found the car she drove to the casino, a red or maroon 2005 Suzuki Forenza.
Chaos Divers, an Illinois-based group, has taken up the cold case and is looking for Adams. The group reportedly has helped locate 23 missing people over the past several years.
The Ohio River along the West Virginia border has depths of around 20 feet.
‘Problems With Her Gambling’
A 2007 article from the Ellwood City Ledger just days after her disappearance reported that Adams’ brother John said his sister had problems with her gambling. The report said:
John said Karen had money problems from gambling too much, with the bingo games and Mountaineer trips draining her wallet.
In the last conversation the brother and sister had, just a few hours before she disappeared, John said he asked his sister, “When is it going to stop?” But he said he’s not angry at her.
“Maybe this is her way of stopping it,” John said. “Maybe she’s out getting some help. Maybe she just got embarrassed.”
John Adams did not say that he thought she had taken her own life. He said that he thought his sister had been abducted, though there isn’t evidence to date to suggest she was taken, according to reports.
Surveillance tapes at Mountaineer reportedly did not show her interacting with anyone while she was gambling.
Karen Adams worked two jobs, one as a cashier at a retail store and another as a teacher’s aide for people with disabilities, according to the Charley Project, which profiles missing persons in the U.S.
