Frisco – The daughter of a 62-year-old Summit County woman missing since Monday made a tearful plea Wednesday for tips on her mother’s whereabouts.
“Hi, my name is Kathleen McCormick, and my mom has been missing for three days,” she said, breaking down during a news conference at the Frisco Town Hall. “If anybody knows anything, I just hope that they come forward. I just want information. That’s as far as it will go. No questions. I just need my mother back. I can’t live without her.”
Patricia McCormick last was seen on Monday morning delivering parts to the Keystone vehicle-maintenance shop, and authorities have been searching ever since for her white Ford Ranger pickup emblazoned with NAPA auto-parts logos and an oversized ball cap on the roof.
“Everything is wide open. We’re not suspecting any foul play or anything like that at this point in time. But obviously you can’t rule anything out at this stage,” said Summit County Sheriff John Minor.
The Summit County Dive and Rescue Team will search an area of Dillon Reservoir near the Snake River inlet this morning.
Officers have been scouring the routes Patricia McCormick would have been expected to drive, keeping a careful eye out for places where she may have skidded off an icy road. Police sent out a statewide “be on the lookout” message.
“We’ve contacted plow drivers, Summit Stage (bus) drivers, the eyes and ears of the community,” Minor said.
Kathleen McCormick described her mother as a homebody who preferred reading to a social life, and someone who would never venture off without telling her.
“It’s very unlike her, completely,” she said. “She’s not a traveler, especially without telling anybody and especially in a company truck. That’s why this is so out of the norm. She knows to call me, whatever it is.”
Wednesday was Patricia McCormick’s one-year anniversary on the delivery job, and she has been unfailingly reliable, said Susan Ellinger, wife of one of the shop owners. Cheerful and beloved by everyone at NAPA, McCormick is known to spend her lunch hours squirreled away in a small back room, reading a book and eating her sandwich, Ellinger said.
“She really loves it,” Kathleen McCormick said. “I tried to get her a job at the library, and she said she didn’t want to be inside all day. … She likes being outside. She likes the freedom of not being in one spot all day.”
McCormick was wearing her NAPA jacket and shirt and is 5 feet 2, with bobbed grayish-brown hair.
Authorities ask that anyone with any information call the Frisco Police Department at 970-668-3579 or the Summit County Sheriff’s Department at 970-453-2232.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
