http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2012/09/children_of_missing_hillsboro.html
Maria Bolanos-Rivera woke up early on Aug. 26, a Sunday morning. She drank some hot chocolate and ate a piece of bread. She got in the shower and then combed her curly, black hair and secured it into a low braid behind her neck that hung just beyond her shoulders. She put on some lotion.
Dressed in a light-weight sweatshirt, jeans and white Nike sneakers that afternoon, Bolanos-Rivera turned to her 22-year-old daughter, Nancy Mendez, who lives with her. "I'll see you later," she said and walked out of her Hillsboro home on Southeast Walnut Street.
Oddly, she didn't tell Mendez where she was going.
By early evening, Bolanos-Rivera still wasn't home. Mendez started to worry; it was unlike her mother. Mendez called one of her sisters, who told her to keep waiting. Mendez called another sister. She, too, told her to keep waiting.
Mendez went into her mother's room, where she sat on her bed and called her over and over again. All night.
View full sizeMaria Bolanos-Rivera Three weeks later, there's still nothing. Bolanos-Rivera, 56, remains gone. She hasn't contacted her family. Her phone is dead. Her wallet is at home, along with her diabetes medication. Thursday was her birthday.
The Hillsboro Police Department said investigators are now concerned that foul play could be a factor in her disappearance. Authorities and Bolanos-Rivera's family is urging anyone with information to come forward and tell investigators.
Police have said Bolanos-Rivera could be with 29-year-old Eloy Vasquez, who has short black hair and brown eyes. Bolanos-Rivera knows Vasquez from work, Mendez said, but not well. Vasquez, police said, lives in the Beaverton area and is also gone. Police think he is in California.
Mendez said her mother's life revolves around her children. She's the only parent they have.
Their father, Julian Francisco Mendez Reyes, 45, was found dead on March 13, 1999 in the common bathroom of a Cornelius labor camp off Southwest Nursery Road. He died of a blow to the head, possibly from a baseball bat.
His case remains unsolved. The Mendez family doesn't want their mother's case to be another mystery.
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The morning of Aug. 27, Mendez and her siblings decided to look for their mother. They drove around Bald Peak, near the place Bolanos-Rivera works with Oregon Berry Packing. They drove around the streets of Hillsboro to the city's outskirts, hoping they'd spot their mother walking.
After hours of searching, they stopped at the Hillsboro police station to report their mother missing. But they couldn't file a report, Mendez said, because the department said it was too soon. Frustrated with the police, they left the station and went home.
They stopped looking for their mother but continued to call her phone. When Bolanos-Rivera was still missing on Tuesday Aug. 28, they called police. An officer came to their home and took a report.
They continued calling their mom.
The next day, Hillsboro Detective Pat LaMonica came to the home, where he looked for clues of her whereabouts, Mendez said, but came away with little. LaMonica told the family to stop calling her cellphone to preserve its battery, Mendez said.
They didn't call again.
Police said in the first few days Bolanos-Rivera was gone, they pinged the phone and found that it was in the Hillsboro area. But they couldn't nail down a location specific enough to search for her.
Since her mother's disappearance, Mendez, a nanny, and her siblings have struggled to get back into their daily routines. Mendez won't stay in the home she shared with her mother. She couldn't sleep there. It would be too sad, and she's never been on her own. She's always been with her mom.
They struggled to explain how much they miss her; how much they hurt; how much they hope to see her again.
They want to believe she's alive, Mendez said. It's too sad to think otherwise.
***
Bolanos-Rivera has lived in Hillsboro for about five years, Mendez said. Before that, she lived outside the city's southern edge.
After her husband's killing, Bolanos-Rivera slipped into a deep depression, Mendez recalled. She was zoned-out, as if she wasn't there. She isolated herself.
After four years, she started to get better, Mendez said, but she has never healed all the way. Recently, she seemed happy: talking, smiling and laughing with her family.
Bolanos-Rivera loves to garden and care for her pets: Luna, a chihuahua mix, and three unnamed, tiny parakeets. She loves to talk with her children and play with her nine grandchildren. She loves to cook meals and dance to Spanish music.
She doesn't go far from home. She buys groceries from a store less than a mile away. She doesn't drive, so she mostly walks to get around.
Beyond her family, Bolanos-Rivera doesn't talk to many people. Her children are all grown up, Mendez said, but Bolanos-Rivera was always checking in. She would call her children nearly every day, to see how they are and make sure they had eaten.
Mendez said she and her siblings are keeping their phones at their sides. They pick up every call.
Anyone with more information is asked to call Hillsboro Detective Pat LaMonica at
503-681-5357 .
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