A Woodstock woman who disappeared while visiting family in London has been found, her daughter said Thursday.
Despite her relief, Londoner Susan Tryhub remains frustrated by the response from London police in the search for her mother, echoing a refrain heard from other families during the past several years.
Police did little to find her mother, Yuderquis Perez-Gomez, 38, and had a chance to help her mother the day before she went missing but let the woman slip out of their hands, Tryhub said.
“It’s pretty disappointing that we were trying to get her help and the police weren’t on our side.”
London police did not confirm Thursday that Perez-Gomez was found. Nor did they respond to questions about the investigation from The London Free Press.
Tryhub told The Free Press Thursday afternoon her mother had been found near Walkerton, dropped off at a hospital by a man who picked her up outside a London motel a week ago.
Yuderquis Perez-Gomez
A Woodstock resident, Perez-Gomez went missing about 10 a.m. May 12, last seen near the Super 8 motel on Wellington Road.
Her mother was a personal support worker in Woodstock. She had a fall from a building in Cuba three years ago and suffered brain damage, Tryhub said.
“Everybody in Woodstock knows her. She is a very loving woman,” Tryhub said.
Her mother sometimes loses her grip on reality. When she’s offered help, she can get aggressive. Even so, she visits London often and enjoys shopping, Tryhub said.
Tryhub has a young daughter and didn’t feel comfortable having her mother stay with them, so arranged to get her a motel room during a recent visit.
About 8 p.m., May 11, driving by London Health Sciences Centre, Tryhub decided to see if her mother would agree to get admitted for psychiatric help.
But Perez-Gomez ran into traffic at Wellington and Commissioners roads, and a terrified Tryhub followed her to the Best Western Lamplighter Inn lobby.
Tryhub called police, but when police arrived, they took her mother aside for questioning.
“They kept questioning her, ‘Is your daughter asking you to be a prostitute? Is that why she’s putting you in a motel room?’ ” Tryhub said. “They looked at me as if I was the mentally ill one.”
Police told her they could do nothing and left, Tryhub said.
She took her mother back to her hotel room.
The next day, she planned to go to court to apply for a Form 1 under Ontario’s Mental Health Act to check her mother into hospital involuntarily for a 72-hour assessment, Tryhub said.
Instead, she arrived at the motel to find her mother was missing.
Tryhub said she called police immediately. Woodstock police issued a missing persons release May 14, but London did not.
London police have been criticized in the past for their reaction to reports of missing persons who don’t live traditional lifestyles.
The family of Trever Andrews, last seen in October 2009, complained police did not take their concerns seriously because he sometimes went on drinking or drug binges.
The family and friends of Shelley Desrochers, last seen in January 2014, said police did not take her disappearance seriously because she was sometimes a sex worker.
http://www.lfpress.com/2017/05/18/yuderquis-perez-gomez-found-near-walkerton
