adminhome or pick up her three-year-old son from day care.
Her car was later found abandoned outside a post office in her home town of Stanwood, Washington triggering a major crime investigation that would last almost two decades.
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives feared the 28-year-old mother had been the victim of a crime as it was deemed unlikely she would have voluntarily left her son.
Eventually her profile was added to a deck of cards of unsolved homicides or missing persons.
The mystery stretching over two decades was finally brought to a close last week when the mother herself called detectives to say she was alive and well and had started a new family in California. Ms Bello, who was last seen on December 13, 1993, when she suddenly left her work at the National Food Corporation in Silvana, had spotted her profile on the sheriff’s website.
She is featured on the eight of hearts in the county’s deck of cold-case playing cards, among seven other people who vanished under suspicious circumstances. She is the first missing person in the 52 cards to be located.
Since receiving last week’s call, detectives worked to confirm her story and verify her identity.
Through multiple interviews with her and her family, detectives are confident that Ms Bello is alive and has three new sons, sheriff’s Chief Kevin Prentiss said. – HeraldNet
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