VERO BEACH — Rachel Lynn Crenshaw has now been missing for four days and Vero Beach Police Detectives are running out of reasonable explanations about where she might be and why no one has heard from her.
Lt. Matt Harrelson, who heads up Vero’s Investigations Division and is in charge of the case, said the 33-year-old was expected to return home or to reach out to friends by now, but she hasn’t.
Crenshaw and her boyfriend were at a barbecue at a friend’s house in Vero’s Central Beach neighborhood on Saturday evening, but the couple left and became embroiled in an argument.
The boyfriend, who police are not identifying at this point, said Crenshaw stormed off on foot away from him. A nearby Central Beach resident interviewed by police also said they saw a woman matching Crenshaw’s description walking away from the boyfriend on Saturday evening. He reported her missing on Sunday when she had not returned to the home they share near Vero Beach High School.
Police immediately entered Crenshaw’s information into the national missing persons database on Sunday, and then on Tuesday released her photo and some basic facts about her disappearance, in hopes that she would see herself on the news and report in to her friends or boyfriend, or that whoever she was staying with would see the missing persons alert and call police to say Crenshaw was safe.
Harrelson said the boyfriend has been interviewed numerous times and is being “very cooperative.” He was seen later Saturday evening with his son by witnesses. Police have questioned friends who were at the party and neighbors of the couple.
What concerns investigators the most, Harrelson said, is that when Crenshaw was last seen near the intersection of Flamevine Lane and Highway A1A on Vero’s barrier island, she lacked any means to travel.
Crenshaw did not have a purse, a cell phone, money or a credit card. She also did not have a vehicle. She has no family in the Vero Beach area, her nearest relatives are in Gainesville. Because of the totality of these circumstances, Harrelson said, investigators consider Crenshaw to be “endangered” as well as missing.
Crenshaw is five-feet, five inches tall and weighs approximately 140 pounds. She has brown hair, brown eyes and was last seen wearing a New York Jets T-shirt, blue jeans and black sandals. She has a tribal tattoo of butterflies on the back of her neck.
If anyone has information about Crenshaw’s disappearance or current location, they should call the Vero Beach Police Department’s Detective Bureau at (772) 978-4600.