CHICAGO (WLS) — A South Side community is searching for an at-risk woman who was last seen near a CTA bus stop.
Felecia Bates went missing earlier this month on the city’s South Side, her family said.
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Bates is 49 years old. She suffers from both diabetes and schizophrenia. As of Sunday afternoon, she’s been without her medication for 11 days.
I’m just hoping and praying that my daughter comes back safely.
Ruby Bates, mother of missing at-risk woman
Her family is urgently seeking her whereabouts. On Sunday, they returned to Hyde Park, where they suspect she was heading when she disappeared on July 2 in South Shore.
“We’ve been out here every day just passing out flyers, trying to get the word out,” Bates’ cousin Angela Sanders said.
Starting from Nichols Park, her friends and family proceeded down 53rd Street heading east. They distributed flyers with her photo and engaged with anyone they encountered, hoping that someone might have seen her.
“She said, ‘I’m going over to Hyde Park, and I’ll be back around dinner,'” Felecia Bates’ mother Ruby Bates said. “That was the 2nd of July.”
A resident of South Shore, Felecia Bates lives at home with her mother and rarely ventured out of her neighborhood, except to come to Hyde Park.
“She visits the park, may stop by Starbucks, and chats with people,” Bate’s aunt Callie Logan remarked. “She boards the bus and heads home. She always returns before nightfall.”
Bates was last seen at a CTA bus stop at 75th and Jeffrey. The problem is she left home without her purse or a phone, according to her relatives. Because she used cash to pay for the bus, CTA is unable to track whether she actually got on the bus.
“We don’t know for sure if she got on the bus or she didn’t,” Bates’ brother Steven Autry said. “We just seen a person saying a person sitting on the bus stop and three buses past, they looked up, she was gone.”
Bates was last seen wearing a burgundy shirt, capri blue jeans and blue gym shoes with pink around them. Because she did not like taking photos, her ID photo is the most current one her family has.
Calls to police, the CTA, hospitals, homeless shelters and even the medical examiner’s office have so far yielded nothing.
“I’m just hoping and praying that my daughter comes back safely,” Ruby Bates said.
Anyone who thinks they may have seen Felecia Bates is asked to call 911.
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