Investigators issued a missing and endangered alert for a Virginia Beach, Virginia, mother and her two children who disappeared after she went on a blind date.
Monica Lamping, 29, was last heard by from relatives around midnight Sunday and seen traveling in a 2002 Jeep Cherokee with her two children, 9-month old Oria and 7-year-old, Kai.
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In addition to a fire that destroyed her home over the weekend, Virginia Beach Police Department issued the alert due to the “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the lengthy period of time Lamping was last seen by friends and family.
“Obviously, it’s been quite some time since anyone’s been in contact with her,” Virginia Beach Police Officer Linda Kuehn told The New York Post. “There’s been nothing confirmed whether or not the fire is even relevant to this, but that’s all part of the investigation.”
Lamping’s mother, Sheila Bogart received a call over the weekend from the local fire department informing her that a fire destroyed her daughter’s home and killed two pets, but said she initially thought her daughter and two children were staying at a friend’s house on Saturday.
The friend confirmed Bogart’s claims and said Lamping had picked the children up, but was heading home. From there, the two friends traded text messages until 10:30 p.m. that evening.
“And then at that point, we don’t know what happened after that,” Bogart told ABC news affiliate, WVEC.
Kai Lamping’s stepmother, Moira told WVEC that Monica’s friend watched the children so that she could go on a blind date with a man by the name of Chad.
“She picked the kids back up around 5:30 [Saturday],” Moira said. “[Monica] said something about car trouble and Chad could fix it.”
Moira told police that Lamping later canceled a babysitting job and had not been heard from since. While it remains unclear whether the fire is related to the young mother’s disappearance, relatives are troubled.
“We’re just worried about the kids,” Moira Lamping told WVEC. “We just want to get this out there and try to get them back as soon as possible.”
As of Tuesday, the family has hired a private investigator, while Kevin Lamping, father of Kai, received permission to leave his Navy post to help search for his family.
Kevin Lamping, 31, expressed to WVEC his intense worry, saying he wondered if his child was in a truly bad place.
“The more I think about him, which has been a lot lately, I think about how pure he is and how innocent he is,” he said.
Monica Lamping was last seen driving a green 2002 Jeep Cherokee with a Virginia license plate, tagged XPU-6357. If you have any information regarding her disappearance, please call the Virginia Beach Police Department at (757) 385-5000.
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This article originally appeared on Womanista.com
