This Sunday’s featured MP was selected by the person who runs the wonderful Whereabouts Still Unknown blog, which I can’t say enough good things about. (I don’t believe I know the blogger’s name. And if I did, I wouldn’t post it here anyway, as it would seem this person prefers to remain anonymous.) Laura Marie Nimbach, age 22, disappeared from St. Petersburg, Florida on February 17, 2009.
Laura looks so happy and carefree in the photos I have of her, but in fact she was going through a lot of problems at the time of her disappearance. She was addicted to Oxycontin, a very powerful painkiller, and made a couple of failed attempts to get clean. Four months before she vanished, just after Thanksgiving, she made a very serious suicide attempt (taking about 250 pills in all), and she may have still been experiencing medical problems as a result when she vanished. She’d been involved in an abusive relationship and was still in contact with her abuser when she disappeared. She was also facing minor criminal charges.
But there’s more to Laura than the poor choices she made, as her friend’s blog about her shows. She grew up in Detroit, Michigan and graduated a private high school at the top of her class in spite of a rough situation at home. She was always a hard worker who supported herself from an early age. After high school she enrolled in the nursing program at Wayne State University and attended for two years, working to put herself through.
Laura had people who loved her dearly and they were trying to help her get her life back on track. And she could have done so. 22 is not too old to start afresh, and Laura was making attempts to do just that before she vanished without a trace.
What happened to Laura after she was last seen three days after Valentine’s Day in 2009? Did she decide to start over somewhere where no one knew her? Her friend, the author of the blog about her, doubts it. Did her abusive boyfriend kill her? Or was her disappearance caused by someone or something else? In any case, her loved ones would like to know if she’s safe.
If she’s still alive, Laura Nimbach would be 27 today.
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