Local Woman Continues the Search for Missing Family Member

By: Kim Eiten - Email

Updated: Fri 10:42 PM, May 11, 2012

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One local woman continues her search after her loved one left home and never returned.

Friday, they hold vigils all across the country remembering those who have gone missing, and, asking for help. One is taking place in Grand Island.

It's something that Tanya Weiss said seems like it would be straight out of a television show, until it happens in real life.

"It's devastating and horrendous," she said.

That's how she describes the last three months of searching for her cousin Kathy Lawson Worm Arrendondo, who hasn't been seen or heard from since February.

"She's just vanished without a trace," Weiss said.

It all started when Kathy disappeared from her Houston home in the middle of the night.

"She wasn't answering her phone, which is unlike her," Weiss said.

She left home in an unusual way: wearing pink pajamas with her purse and coat still on the counter.

"When it was four and five days later and everyone's calling me asking if I've heard from her and we're all leaving her voicemails until her voicemail is full and none of us have heard from her, then the worry really begins," Weiss said.

It wasn't long before family reported her missing.

"We love her and we miss her and we want her to come home," Weiss said.

Then, the search began.

"Somebody knows something somewhere," Texas Equusearch Search Coordinator Frank Black said. "Something happened to her, and we're waiting for that one key to come in that could put that one piece of the puzzle right back in place that we need."

Black said, given the details of the case, he thinks Kathy's been taken.

"A person could have taken her a mile in one direction or fifty or a hundred miles in another direction," he said.

Because of that, family all over the country are looking for Kathy.

"I live here in Nebraska," Weiss said. "I'm a thousand miles away from Houston, if not more, and I still look for her. I'm still looking for her to see if I see her in a face in a crowd."

Friday, on the three month anniversary of her disappearance, they're holding candlelight vigils all on the same night and at the same time across the U.S.

"We're all trying to bring our loved one back, but at the same time, we all need help doing this," Weiss said.

It's help that they hope will bring Kathy home.

"Until she comes home, until she's found, I'm probably going to look for her forever," Weiss said.

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