Police Search for Missing MB Woman: Threats Made By Mental Facility Patient
By Josh Hoke, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
May 13–Authorities are continuing to search for a Myrtle Beach woman who disappeared this week, just days after a man who’d threatened her left an out-of-state mental health facility.
Susan Jean Williams, 46, has been missing since Wednesday, two days after John Allen Henkel left the Perry Point VA Medical Center in Maryland, officials and family said Saturday.
Police have not linked the two disappearances. However, Maryland State police told Myrtle Beach authorities that Henkel made threats toward Williams before he left the hospital, according to an incident report.
Henkel is listed as a sex offender in Maryland, according to the state’s online registry. There is no evidence that Henkel has left Maryland.
The duo met in October while they were both patients at the hospital, Laurie Hardy, Williams’ sister, said.
“The more she learned what his problem was the more aggressive he got and the more scared she was,” Hardy said. “She just wanted to get away.”
So Williams left the hospital and moved to the area in March. She had lived in the Myrtle Beach area for about 20 years before moving away three years ago.
Williams, who is about 5 feet, 5 inches tall, lives with three Myrtle Beach police officers, Hardy said. Police said she may be driving a maroon 1994 Ford Escort with Maryland plates.
Williams told a Myrtle Beach police officer — who warned her about noon Wednesday of Henkel’s departure — that she was planning to pick up her paycheck before going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get S.C. plates for her car, the incident report states.
Hardy hasn’t talked to her sister since May 5.
“I’m just worried, just terrified,” Hardy said. “I’m not sure what to think. Every day that goes by it gets to more and more of a burden. She totally dropped off the face of the Earth.
“At first her cell phone would go straight to voicemail. The last few days it will ring, but she doesn’t answer.”
Perry Point is 400-acre complex that offers a wide range of medical services, although a large portion of its operation is geared toward mental health, spokesman David Edwards said.
Citing privacy laws, Edwards would not say whether Henkel was a patient at the hospital. Perry Point mental health patients are not restricted from leaving the premises, therefore a departure such as Henkel’s could not be accurately described as an escape, he said.
“We have patients that sometimes leave against a doctor’s advice,” said Edwards.
Contact JOSH HOKE at 626-0318 or jhoke@thesunnews.com [mailto:jhoke@thesunnews.com].
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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