Women Get Lost Driving Home From Church - Turn Up 24 Hours Later

[matcom]

<snip>

It took 24 hours and detours to Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta and Macon before 72-year-old Alice Atwater found her way back home to Upson County after a trip to church.

"We tried to find our way home and the more we tried the farther we went," she said. "I wasn't scared. We just locked the car doors and just rolled."

Alice Atwater and her friends, Florence King, 86, and Ruthelle Outler, 84, were reported missing after they were last seen leaving Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Griffin at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

The trio of women went to the Griffin church more than 20 miles away from their homes to hear a particular preacher. Shortly before 8 p.m. Monday, they returned to Thomaston.

Their disappearance caused friends, family and law enforcement to search the area as media outlets referred people with information to the Griffin Police Department and Upson County Sheriff's Office.

All that was news to Atwater when she was pulled over by a Thomaston police officer Monday evening, she said.

"He said, 'Did you know they have a APB on you?' and I said 'no,' " she said.

Atwater said the women stopped for gas and food, and she couldn't explain why she didn't call her family to tell them where she was. Atwater was cheerful Monday night and laughed loudly in an interview. She said she was tired after driving for more than 24 hours without sleep.
Families of the women were relieved.

Alice Atwater's daughter, Suzette Atwater, said she and others spent all day Monday searching for the women, putting up fliers and asking strangers if they saw the three ladies.

"Once it started getting dark again, I really started getting worried then," she said.

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/local/12928564.htm

[MissMillie]

1. One would think

that they might have run out of gas..... which might have given them the opportunity to buy a roadmap or ask directions.....

[pitohui]

5. be serious

they went to the casino, i bet if the family had checked it out w. the choctaw nation they would have quickly located the "lost" ladies

:-)

philadelphia, mississippi, here we come! it's the church-goers you gotta watch for at them nickel slots

[RedCloud]

2. Yeah. It's the start of a new trend.

Gals not asking for traveling instructions. Just Grrrrr!!!! If I keep driving I might end up somewhere I know!

[underpants]

3. My uncle had a heart attack and the doctor told him

that he needed to start excercising. The doc said he should walk 5 miles a day. So my uncle went home and started walking 5 miles everyday. After 5 days he called the doctor. The doctor asked how he felt and my uncle said ,"I feel great but I am 25 miles from home"

Thank you enjoy the buffet.

[noonwitch]

4. My grandma started doing that when she got senile

My dad and his brother finally had to get the secretary of state to refuse her a driver's license.

She kept trying to find places in Detroit that were no longer there. We were lucky that both of the times she wandered off, she was intercepted by good people working at gas stations in some of Detroit's worst neighborhoods. Clerks who noticed her drive by repeatedly, took her keys from her when she stopped to ask for assistance, and made her call someone to come get her and the car. This was in the 80s, and Detroit is not as dangerous now as it was in the heyday of the crack epidemic.

[Love Bug]

6. Yep -- sounds like the beginning of Alzheimers or some other dementia

I think someone else should be driving these ladies to church from now on.