ST. LOUIS (KTVI) – A St. Louis family is desperate for answers after a 30-year-old woman disappeared thousands of miles away.
Dana Holt was last seen in Dallas on March 2, and none of her family and friends have heard from her since.
“It’s so scary to know that she’s thousands of miles somewhere, and I have no clue where, and I cannot help her,” said Holt’s older sister, Audrey Clay.
Clay said her sister boarded an Amtrak train at the Gateway Transportation Center in downtown St. Louis around 7 p.m. on March 1 headed to Dallas.
For Clay, it’s been two weeks of not knowing where her only sister is, or who she may be with.
“I just feel every day that goes by, it just gets scarier, and I just get more fearful. But I’m not going to find her,” Clay said with tears in her eyes.
She said Holt was last seen on surveillance video at the Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station in Dallas around noon on March 2. Clay said detectives in Dallas told her a strange man was seen on video approaching Dana after getting off the train.
“He approaches Dana and helps my sister with her bags. Then they walked to the south end of the platform and go off-camera. That was it. I haven’t seen the footage yet,” Clay said.
Their mom, Deborah Holt, answered a phone call from Dana Holt when she was in Dallas on March 2. The mom said her daughter sounded scared and was crying.
“She sounded terrified and scared. I was like, ‘Where are you?’ She was like, ‘Oh my gosh. He’s getting out of the shower. I got to go.’ That was it. I didn’t get to say I love you or anything,” Deborah Holt said.
“[Dana] said, ‘He won’t let me leave. I can’t get any of my stuff,'” Clay added.
Clay drove to Dallas along with her grandmother and wife. Once they got there, they went to the train station and started handing out flyers.
“I did everything that we could. We put up flyers everywhere we could think of. I searched woods, ditches, searched strip clubs, all of that for four days,” Clay said.
Coffee Wright, the CEO of St. Louis-based nonprofit Missing Person Task Force, Inc., said the first 48 hours are the most crucial after a person goes missing. She said the family has to go back to Dallas and do as much legwork as possible.
“Parents, family, head back to Dallas. Head back to Dallas and start passing out flyers all over. Cover as much ground as you can. Get as many people as you can to volunteer. You got to be her foot soldiers. Also, go on social media every day, every day, showing people her photos and making people care,” Wright said.
Clay said her sister has a blood condition and suffers from mental illness. She hopes people share her sister’s face and story and can help bring her sister home.
“Anything that you think would be a piece of evidence, I would call it in. It may be that one thing that breaks our case wide open,” Clay said. “Whoever has her, you took somebody very close to us, and I will not stop until I get my sister back.”
Police said Dana Holt has blonde hair with dark roots and brown eyes. She stands about 5 feet 9 inches tall, and weighs about 250 pounds. She was last seen wearing a black jacket and black pants. Her family also said she has very noticeable tattoos on both her neck and chest.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts should call 911 or the Dallas Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit at (214) 671-4268.