Cops are searching for an elderly couple after they disappeared from a California nudist ranch over the weekend — with one friend saying there was “no way” they could have left the area due to their physical ailments.
Stephanie and Daniel Menard were last seen Saturday morning at their Keissel Road home, according to a Facebook post by the Redlands Police Department.
A friend reported them missing the next day when they weren’t ready for Sunday church services, as they normally are, CBS News reported.
“(They) went inside their home to see if they would be OK … and they didn’t find them in there,” friend Sandy Marinelli said.
“But, they found Stephanie’s purse was in there, (her) cane was in there. … the TV was left on, computer was left on. It was just very suspicious for them to be gone.”
Local cops found the couple’s unlocked car down the road from their house later that day.
Aside from Stephanie’s purse and cane, cops also found the couple’s cell phones inside their home, cops said.
Their dog, a white Shih Tzu named Cuddles, was also missing.
“Each day just gets longer and longer, and we get more and more worried,” Marinelli told ABC 7.
“There’s just nothing. Not even anything to go off of right now,” she continued. “It’s very concerning because this is not normal for them at all.”
Friends say the couple’s ailments — Daniel, 79, is diabetic and suffers from dementia, while Stephanie, 73, walks with a cane — mean they could not have gone far on foot.
“There’s no way that Stephanie or Dan could have walked away from that car,” friend Tammie Wilkerson told ABC. “She has a cane. It was at home, her purse, their cellphones — things they would never have left at home.”
The couple lives at the Olive Dell nudist ranch, which on its website bills itself as “Southern California’s favorite nudist resort for families and couples.”
The Colton, California ranch sits just a few miles from San Bernardino and Riverside, and is the “ideal spot to enjoy the nudist/naturist lifestyle whether visiting for the day or an overnight stay,” the site added.
But the pair — who are active in the Olive Dell community and in their church — had been embroiled in a lawsuit against the complex, and friends said they’d been getting harassed about it.
They’re hoping that doesn’t have any connection to their disappearance.
“Dan was funny, and he was sweet,” Wilkerson said. “It just plagues me. I can’t believe somebody would do something like this to them. It hurts my heart ’cause they didn’t deserve it.”
“There’s not a mean bone in their body at all, which makes this very confusing.”
Cops have not commented on the possibility of foul play, despite friends’ and neighbors’ worries and a recent rash of break-ins and vandalism in the area, CBS said.
“I can’t really speak to that; we’re certainly investigating every avenue,” Carl Baker, spokesperson for the City of Redlands, told the network.
“We did have search dogs from Riverside Sheriff’s Office and a helicopter from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Redlands police at (909)798-7681 or Detective Thomas Williams at twilliams@redlandspolice.org.
