Missing woman appeared ‘stressed,’ says woman who last saw her

Natalie Driscoll and LaTricia Bass-Jefferies. CONTRIBUTED

Natalie Driscoll and LaTricia Bass-Jefferies. CONTRIBUTED

The last person to see a missing Dayton woman Saturday evening before she disappeared said she appeared stressed.

LaTricia Bass-Jefferies, of Dayton, was last seen Saturday when she drove Natalie Driscoll to Springfield.

“She seemed stressed out to me,” Driscoll said. “That was our first time hanging out just me and her. I date her cousin, so anytime we are together it’s always at a family gathering or something.”

After Bass-Jeffereries dropped her off, Driscoll tried to call and text her to make sure she was okay, she said.

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“When I did, the phone just rang and rang and no one answered and she didn’t respond to my text messages,” Driscoll said. “I didn’t think anything about it … she had plans to go to a male friend’s house in Dayton. I thought maybe she just got caught up with that.”

Driscoll said she knew something was wrong when Bass-Jefferies’ sister called her on Tuesday, asking if she had heard from her.

Since then, Driscoll described the search for her friend as a “living nightmare.”

On Thursday, the 2002 gray Toyota Bass-Jefferies had been driving was pulled from Buck Creek. The car belongs to her estranged husband.

“[Buck Creek] is 20 minutes from my house. I live right by the highway, if she was going to turn around and go right back to Dayton, I don’t see how she could have gotten out here,” Driscoll said. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and I didn’t know this (the part of the park where the car was found) was here. I don’t even know why she would have been down here by the loading dock.”

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