Woman Turns Up in Nevada Casino : Disappearance: The explanation is still missing for Orange mother’s abrupt vanishing.

An Orange woman who vanished last week after dropping off her two children at school turned up unharmed Thursday at a casino near Las Vegas.

Barbara Burchartz, 31, called detectives about 4 a.m. and said she had no intention of worrying her family and didn’t realize they had reported her missing, Orange Police Lt. Timm Browne said.

Burchartz has been staying at Buffalo Bill’s Hotel and Casino in Stateline, Nev., about 40 miles from Las Vegas. Police said Burchartz, an unemployed receptionist who quit her job about a month ago amid a tumultuous divorce, offered no explanation for leaving. “At this point, we’ve done all that we can do,” Browne said.

Three of her brothers headed to Stateline on Thursday “to convince her to come back home and assure her that we love her and miss her,” said Kelli Reed, her 33-year-old sister.

“It’s wonderful news that she’s found, but it’s still pretty nerve-racking for us because we still have a lot of unanswered questions,” Reed said. “What baffled us all was that she didn’t want to talk to her family. It’s very out of character of her.”

When reached at Buffalo Bill’s Thursday night, Burchartz said she was getting ready to check out of the hotel, but declined to discuss her disappearance.

Her brothers arrived in Nevada late in the day and spoke with Burchartz. “Things are looking positive,” Reed said.

Burchartz left her Fern Street home Nov. 29 after taking her children, ages 8 and 11, to school. Reed and her estranged husband, Raymond Burchartz, reported the woman missing the next day.

After a week of investigation, family members held a news conference Wednesday asking for the public’s help in locating Barbara Burchartz.

Following media coverage, a caller told police that Burchartz had been staying with a friend in Laguna Beach until Monday, Browne said. Another acquaintance of Burchartz’s contacted Laguna Beach police and said she might have gone to a casino in Stateline, investigators said.

“We located her in one of the rooms there, and she stated that she was fine,” Sgt. Greg McCurdy of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Thursday. “We interviewed her for about an hour. Basically, she said she wanted to be here and didn’t seem despondent. So we left her, we had no reason to do more than that.”

McCurdy said the woman was alone.

On Thursday, after receiving a telephone call that Burchartz was found, family members called off the campaign to pass out fliers across the county and made plans to head to Nevada, Reed said.

“We don’t know why she might have done what she did,” Reed said. “The only thing that we could come up with is that the events over last several months--everything that happened--just came to a head and was too much for her to handle. Still, we’re not going to know until we talk to her.”

Raymond Burchartz, who has temporary custody of the couple’s children and use of the Fern Street home, told relatives he is happy she had been found. He declined to comment Thursday.

The couple was married for 11 years before separating in January. Barbara Burchartz filed for divorce last spring, her attorney said.

“[Raymond Burchartz] told the children that their mom has been found and they’re waiting for her to come home,” Reed said.