Driver Who Vanished Is Reported OK

Los Angeles police reported Saturday that a retired college professor from Oregon who vanished in Van Nuys as she and her husband were traveling to Texas had been found, but her son remained concerned for her safety.

“I haven’t talked to her,” said Jonas Brown in a telephone interview from his home in Memphis. “As far as I’m concerned, she hasn’t been found.”

Marie Avant, 69, became separated from her husband, Wendell, on Wednesday as she drove a pickup truck behind her husband’s car on their way to a new home in Brownsville, Tex. They were moving from Oregon and had stopped for gas near the Ventura Freeway in Van Nuys before Wendell Avant lost sight of his wife, police said.

Wendell Avant, also 69, remained in Van Nuys, notified police and waited in a motel for word of his wife, police said.

The missing woman called friends in Brownsville on Friday as she headed toward Texas, Detective John Sack said. The friends, in turn, contacted her husband, who left Saturday morning for Brownsville.

“She had it in her mind that they were going to Texas and she just kept on going that way,” Sack said.

Wendell Avant called the Brown home Saturday morning and talked to Brown’s wife. He told them he had spoken with friends in Brownsville who had been in contact with Marie Avant. He said he was leaving Los Angeles for Brownsville.

But Brown said that since his stepfather had not spoken directly with his mother, he still considers her missing. Neither police nor Brown knew the names of the friends Marie Avant was said to have contacted.

“We’re talking about an educated woman here who’s really sharp,” Brown said. “She had almost all the money and Wendell’s medicine. She had all the clothes, too. Wendell had to go out and buy some underwear in Los Angeles. I just can’t imagine that she’d go off by herself.”

On the other hand, Brown said, both Avants are independent souls and his mother would not fear driving across the country alone.

“Hopefully, it’ll turn out OK,” he said. “But I won’t be able to sleep until I hear from her.”

Marie Avant was driving a 1967 two-tone blue Chevrolet pickup truck with Oregon license plate QNN 070. Police described Avant as a white woman, 5 feet, 5 inches tall, 115 pounds, with gray hair and blue eyes. She was wearing dark blue pants and a light blue blouse when last seen by her husband Wednesday.