KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s been almost two weeks, and still no sign of a missing Children’s Mercy social worker.
On Tuesday, the family took a step forward in their effort to find Marina Bischoff by hiring a private investigator.
P.I. John Underhill is planning an extensive search for the missing 39-year-old beginning at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
He, Kansas City police and community volunteers will meet in the area between the Shoal Creek Patrol Division and the Police Training Academy, which is located at 6885 N.E. Pleasant Valley Road.
Police said the night before Bischoff disappeared on May 28, an officer arrested her for driving under the influence and leaving the scene of an accident.
KCPD said she returned to the crash. Bischoff was arrested and released the next morning without a cell phone or keys.
Family said she had been depressed leading up to her disappearance.
“It’s extremely emotional for the family,” Underhill said. “We have to be there to help as much as we can.”
Underhill drew up plans to search a one-mile radius of where she was last seen, then expand it to two and so forth.
He’s working with KCPD but said they need more volunteers.
“There may be some evidence of when that person left,” Underhill explained. “There might have been a possession that we can find that gives us a trail of where she’s going.”
Bischoff worked as a social worker at Children’s Mercy in the Northland.
Over the weekend, dozens of her co-workers helped police and K-9s search the woods, bushes and neighborhoods near the training academy for evidence.
Underhill walked the area Tuesday and said there are some spots he mapped out that will be new. But it never hurts to search the same locations twice.
He said the clock is ticking in this missing persons case.
“We have a lot of days that have passed by now,” Underhill said. “So we’re getting concerned, but we have faith and we do what we need to do to try and locate and find her.”
If you would like to volunteer, dress appropriately, and meet near the Shoal Creek Patrol Division at 11 a.m. Wednesday.