A mysterious disappearance in Ashtabula County has a community worried something bad has happened.
Deputies say Rand Al Dulaimi, a 23-year old mother, left her toddler son with relatives but then never showed up for her job at a senior center.
For the past year, she had been living at the Harbor Ridge Apartments in Ashtabula.
“I’m praying she’s found alive and safe. But just something inside of me is telling me she’s been hurt,” neighbor Carol Huffman said.
Al Dulaimi was social with neighbors, responsible, yet estranged from her husband.
“He hadn’t been coming around ‘til just recently, the past couple of weeks I guess,” Huffman said. “He acted ‘normal,’ I mean he’d come in, he’d leave with no problems. I never heard anything.”
Last Wednesday was the last day anyone saw Rand Al Dulaimi, at a home in Saybrook Township.
In a video posted to Facebook, a woman named Rula Al Dulaimi claims to be her sister.
On the page for the Ohio Center for Missing Persons, she says she needs help obtaining a visa.
“I really, really need to get to America in this week in these days,” she says. “Pleases help us. Please help us. If anyone can do it, please help us.”
She is worried about her nephew, who investigators say, is with relatives.
“He’s still a baby. He is 2-years-old and he doesn’t have anyone to take care of him. So please, please help us,” she says.
Parents living in the apartment community are likewise concerned about their own children.
“You’re trying to keep them safe, and stuff like this, it’s hard to be out there by yourself,” mother Brenda Zarmeni said.
“She is a good girl, and nobody deserves this,” Brenda Hoffman added.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed Tuesday they are assisting in the case. Anyone with information is asked to call the Ashtabula County Sheriff’s Department.
MORE | Chris Tye continues our reporting on this story
