(Publisher’s Note: This article was initially published in December 2021 in hopes that someone who knows something about the disappearance of Nancy Lynn Green, a 45-year-old female who vanished in Center Wheeling 22 years ago today, would come forward with information that would give closure to a daughter who has refused to stop her search for her mother. … Can you help her?)
Every day, she wonders.
There has not been a day in the past 22 years, two months, and nine days when April Green Thompson has not looked for her mother, Nancy Lynn Green, after she vanished on September 30, 2002. Nancy had been dropped off by her sister, Darlene, at 7:25 a.m. at OVMC, for treatment for bipolar disorder, but she never showed up for the appointment.
According to the report filed by Wheeling Police on Oct. 1, 2002, Green was a white female who was 45 years old with short, brownish-gray hair. She was 5’ 4”, 120 pounds with brown eyes, and fair skin, and “was last seen wearing a gray color, cotton jogging suit and white tennis shoes.”
The report also included that Nancy suffered from an undefined heart condition, that her hands shake, and that she has a scar on her right leg shaped like a “V.”
Darlene told officers Nickerson and Flanegin that she believes “Nancy could be roaming the city somewhere since this has happened before, and she was found in the woods behind Wheeling Hospital.”
“She told me after she was found that the only reason was that a raccoon scared her, and she ran from it,” Green Thompson explained on 100.1 FM WLYV. “She wasn’t a happy person because she felt she was a burden on her family, and she didn’t like that fact, but that’s never stopped me from taking a second or third look at someone who I think looks like her.
“We had a pretty big search party for her when she first disappeared. We went up what used to be a road known as ‘Suicide Hill’ and all around the hospital because there are a lot of wooded areas, and that’s where she had gone the first time,” she said. “We felt we looked everywhere possible, but no one found a thing. Not a sign. And apparently, no one saw where she went either, and we didn’t have cameras everywhere like we do these days.”
Needle. Haystack.
The city of Wheeling had nearly 35,000 residents at the time Nancy Green vanished, and the fact she disappeared from one part of town only to be found in another greatly broadened the search area for family and friends.
“And we really didn’t know where to look after we searched around the hospital,” Green Thompson said. “He knew people from all over town. When she disappeared, she had a place in Luau Manor, but she was staying with my aunt at Hildar in Elm Grove. So, we didn’t know.”
The family did register Nancy Green’s disappearance with the Center of Missing Adults, a non-profit that offers support but not an investigation, and a case manager named Wade L. Smith sent Green Thompson 10 pages of possibilities that included information gathered by Peoplefinding.com. There are the addresses of her seven different residences, more than 100 names of possible acquaintances, and the names of nearby businesses that she may have visited after choosing not to go to her morning treatment.
“And that could have been the case because she said she didn’t like the shock treatments,” Green Thompson said. “I guess her doctors thought shocking her brain could have helped, and sometimes I think they did. At least they seemed to.
“She and my dad split up when I was 6, but he would take me to see her whenever I wanted, and that was several times per week,” she recalled. “She had her good days and her bad days, and you never knew what to expect. That’s just the way it was with her.”
According to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, more than 17,000 adult Americans currently were missing at the end of 2020, and at least 13,000 unidentified body cases were on the books, as well. In Pennsylvania, 401 residents remain missing today, and the same is true in Ohio for 358. Currently, 120 cases involving missing adults remain active in West Virginia.
“I have to update the National Center for Missing Adults every year, and when I look at how many cases there are, it makes me sad for all of the families,” Green Thompson said. “I guess you don’t think about it unless a member of your family is missing, and even though it took place 19 years ago, she’s on my mind every single day.”
Returning to the Airwaves
740-676-2001 was the phone number.
Green Thompson returned to The River Network (100.1 FM WLYV) with hopes someone in the audience can offer her new information.
Did someone see her? Talk to her? Did Nancy Green bum a smoke or ask for a ride? Did she say anything to anyone?
Apparently not.
“I doubted that anyone calls, but you won’t know unless you do it, right? I expect some people to call in support of me and my search for her, but for someone to call and actually tell me where she went or what happened to her, I just can’t see that happening after all of this time,” Green Thompson said. “If there is someone out there who knows something, maybe they might think they could get in trouble for telling me anything. Who knows?”
It was only 10 digits to dial. 740-676-2001.
In September 1993, the OVMC campus was crowded with the medical center, Northwood, and the Hillcrest Behavioral Center operating with more than 700 employees. The area where Green was dropped off by her sister was near the center of all of that action.
“It was early in the morning, though, so maybe that made a difference,” Green Thompson said. “I really don’t think she’s still alive at this point. She was 45 then, and it’s been 19 years, and she had her health issues. Plus, she was suicidal. She had attempted to overdose back then, so maybe this time she was successful.
“At this point, honestly, finding her bones would give me closure,” she admitted. “That would let me stop looking and holding out hope that somehow she’s out there somewhere. I loved my mom, and that’s why I just want to know.”
740-676-2001. The phone, though, never rang.
