Theresa Hartley, 66, was last seen on March 10, 2023, approximately one mile south of North Forest Road 66 in the Ocala National Forest near Lake Delancy.
ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office is conducting another search for a St. Augustine woman who has been missing since March 2023, the sheriff’s office announced Tuesday in a Facebook post.
Theresa Hartley, 66, was last seen on March 10, 2023. She was last seen in the area of North Forest Road 88, approximately one mile south of North Forest Road 66 in the Ocala National Forest near Lake Delancy, the post states.
Police say Hartley was in the woods with a friend when their vehicle got stuck. The friend went to get help while Hartley stayed behind, according to police, and when the friend came back, Hartley was not there.
“It is possible that she has a mental condition and got lost,” the post states.
SJSO will be joined alongside the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the United States Forest Service and K9s to assist in the search, the post states.
Hartley’s niece told First Coast News last year that she’s desperate to find her.
Law enforcement said foul play isn’t suspected, and instead is considered a search and rescue mission. However, Hartley’s niece says she can’t help but to feel uneasy about the details reported to police leading up to her disappearance.
“I can’t see anyone doing anything terrible to her,” Hartley’s niece Cara Hartley said in 2023. “She doesn’t deserve anything like that. She’s talkative, she really loves animals. She’s generous, she would, she would give anybody anything that they needed. She would help anybody.”
Hartley’s roommate reported her missing five days after her disappearance. Her roommate said he last saw her leaving her home with a friend in a white Dodge pickup truck.
According to the police report, the friend Hartley was last seen with told police the two left Hartley’s home and drove to Lake Delancy in the Ocala National Forest to collect wood when the truck got stuck. Both Hartley and the friend tried to leave the wooded area on foot to get help. The friend says he told Hartley to wait inside the truck and he would return with help. After walking for an unknown amount of time, the friend reported Hartley missing to police, as he later called his sister who picked him up.
Withlacoochee Regional Search and Rescue Chief Samuel Matychak said in 2023 that by the time the friend went back for the truck, two days passed.
The police report says Hartley did not have her phone with her and says at the time, both her and her friend were under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Cara told First Coast News in 2023 that a lot of details are not known.
“I did talk to some of her friends who had seen her more recently, and they said that she was having a lot of memory issues,” Cara Hartley said. “I don’t understand how someone could leave her in the woods and then just not say anything about it. That’s not how people should treat people that they call friends.”
Matychak said in 2023 that search and rescue crews scoured more than 500 acres of the Ocala National Forest, using cadaver and hunting dogs, and crews on foot.
“We have confirmed that she was out there with the truck that was stuck in on an ATV trail,” Matychak said last year.
Cara said she hopes her aunt is found soon.
“My hope is that the story that the person she was with is true, that she became discombobulated and had memory issues and someone picked her up and she didn’t know who she was or where she was, and that she is somewhere safe with some people who aren’t aware that she’s missing, who are good-hearted people,” Cara told First Coast News in 2023.
Anyone with information on Hartley’s whereabouts is asked to call the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office at 904-824-8304.
Editor’s note: The YouTube video below is from a previous newscast.
