April Green Thompson wasn’t very hopeful after being invited to be a guest on the River Network 100.1 FM WLYV.
She was appreciative, of course, that her missing mother was once again mentioned by the local media, but nothing happened as far as someone’s stepping forward with new information about Nancy Lynn Green. The woman vanished on Sept. 30, 2002, after being dropped off on the campus of the Ohio Valley Medical Center for an appointment.
“I guess I didn’t expect anyone to call because it’s been so long, and no one has said a word since she disappeared,” Green Thompson said. “We found absolutely nothing when we had a pretty big search party in the wooded areas around OVMC or in downtown. I thought maybe there would be a jacket or a shoe or something. I don’t know. I was just hoping for something.”
It wasn’t the first time Nancy had gone missing. Just a few months before her disappearance, she was gone for a couple of days before emerging from the woods near Wheeling Hospital. She admitted to her daughter that she had planned to remain hidden, but a raccoon scared her, and while she was running a member of law enforcement spotted her and returned her home.
“She wasn’t a happy person,” Green Thompson recalled. “She was bipolar and depressed, and she had tried to take her own life several times. I’m just glad I can remember her happy and laughing. After she and my Dad split up, my Dad would take me to spend time with her whenever I wanted, and it was pretty often.
“She had good days and bad days, and the older she got, there were more bad days,” she said. “But she was my Mom, so I did everything I could for her. I have no idea what happened to her, and that’s why I feel as if I am still searching for her.”
The Nightmare
Her subconscious might have been trying to tell her something for a long while following Nancy’s vanishing.
“For a pretty long time I had the same nightmare night after night,” Green Thompson revealed. “It was really the exact same every time. It got to the point where I would expect it every time I went to bed, and I have always wondered if that’s what happened to my Mom.
“In the dream, I would bewalking on the trail along the Ohio River behind where the Orrick office building is, and I would see this arm and hand reaching for me,” she explained. “The arm and the hand were, um, grotesque, to say the least, but after a while it made me think that maybe she was trying to tell me what happened to her … that she walked away from that appointment that Monday morning and went down to the river.”
The distance between the OVMC campus and the Heritage Trail is a mere three blocks.
“She was only 45 years old, and if with her heart issues, she could still get around pretty well. She could have been down to that area of the river in just a few minutes,” Green Thompson said. “Now, did someone push her in? Did she do it herself? I don’t know those things, and if that’s what happened, I’ll never know for sure.
“I stopped having the nightmare, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve accepted that she’s gone and most likely dead. I don’t know,” she continued. “I thought there was a chance I would have it again because of doing the two radio shows, but I never did and that surprised me a little. But then again, maybe that’s my subconscious telling me something again.”,
