PORT TOWNSEND — The mother of a 15-year-old teen who disappeared Friday said her daughter, Phoebe Marie McHenry, was happy as she walked her younger sister to school that morning.
“She said, ‘I love you,’” when she left, said a distraught Evelyn Michelle McHenry, who said she was waiting by the telephone for news of her daughter.
“She was happy for her sister because her sister had a sleepover yesterday. She was really happy for her,” the Port Townsend woman said.
“She just disappeared.”
Police describe her as 6 feet tall and weighing 300 pounds, with hair that is black and red.
She possibly is wearing black spandex pants and a Seahawks hoodie.
According to Port Townsend Officer Patrick Fudally, Evelyn McHenry told police Phoebe had not returned home from the OCEAN (Opportunity, Community, Experience, Academics and Navigation) Program on Grant Street in Port Townsend.
Officers discovered she had not attended school but had been seen in the area around 12:30 p.m.
Her cell phone was located through a cell tower near Marysville at 3:25 p.m. Friday, the same time a friend received a Facebook message from Phoebe saying “help.”
Marysville police are searching for her, while Port Townsend officers are interviewing Phoebe’s friends and acquaintances, hoping for clues.
An adult relative has distributed fliers in Marysville, the missing girl’s mother said.
“We hope that maybe somebody will see her,” Evelyn McHenry said.
She said her daughter had no connection to Marysville, located just north of Everett along Interstate 5 in Snohomish County.
“We don’t have any family there,” she said.
Evelyn McHenry said her daughter was not likely to have left without notifying her.
“She always would text me if she wanted to go somewhere,” she said.
“She always would ask permission first, so this kind of disturbs me.”
Phoebe’s Facebook page shows a smiling girl with a pierced lower lip and hair that changes hue from black to blue to red.
Her messages, however, tell a different story.
“God people are so stupid,” she posted Sept. 10, saying creating a group called End Bullying “just [to] complain” wouldn’t help solve the problem.
On Sept. 7, she posted, “I’ve learned not to trust people, not to feel things for people, and not to talk to people.
“All anyone does [is] hurt you and it’s better to stay hidden away in ur room where no one can hurt you. . . .
“You live ur life as if your a zombie, going through life so slow and meaningless. Life [will] go by and all u will remember is sitting there, feeling nothing, doing nothing. Just sitting. Thinking how worthless you are and how much ur tired of trying.”
That same day, she posted, “Why is it the people who wanna live, die, but the people who wanna die have to live.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Port Townsend Police Department at 360-344-9779.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
